Berlin (dpa) – After the start of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, the International Olympic Committee wants to continue to advocate sanctions “against anyone in the Olympic community who supports the war”.
The IOC announced this after a meeting between IOC President Thomas Bach and the Ukrainian NOK President and IOC member Sergej Bubka as well as the Ukrainian Minister of Sport Wadym Hutzajt, who among other things visited Ukrainian athletes in Aigle, Switzerland. The much-discussed question of the suspension of Russian IOC members such as the controversial two-time Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbaeva remains open.
No exclusion of officials
The IOC had previously made it clear that, despite the measures taken against Russian athletes, it still did not want to exclude any Russian officials, referring to its Olympic charter. Accordingly, the IOC members are “not representatives of their country within the IOC. Rather, they are elected as individuals by the IOC and then delegated to the sports organizations of their country as ambassadors of the IOC,” the IOC had recently announced on request. In any case, no IOC meetings attended by Russian IOC members would be taking place at the moment.
The IOC had called on all associations to ban athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international competitions. So far, however, the IOC has ruled out a suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee and thus a stop to all payments, and there was no talk of it now either. Switzerland had campaigned for the exclusion of officials from Russia and Belarus from top positions in international sports associations.
At the same time, the IOC will respect all measures taken by governments, the statement said on Friday. The IOC called the war there again a consequence of “the invasion of the Russian army into Ukraine with the support of Belarus”.