Kalervo Kummola bores the International Olympic Committee with very few words.
The IOC’s decision did not please Kalervo Kummola. Pasi Liesimaa
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Friday that it will allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in the Summer Olympics in Paris.
Athletes can participate in the games with neutral national symbols, and they must not have ties to the countries’ armies. Only individual athletes are included in the Games, and countries are not allowed to participate in team sports.
Athletes must also pass individual qualifications or qualifying competitions of the sports federations.
The decision has caused a lot of criticism. Kalervo Kummola, the former president of the Finnish Ice Hockey Federation, thundered about the IOC’s decision.
– The management of the IOC is full of dungarees by allowing individual Russians and non-Russians to participate in the Paris Games. The fact that the final decision has been transferred to the sports federations adds to the lack of coordination, Kummola writes in the message service X.
Kummola, who is the mayor of Tampere, does not believe in Russian participation.
– I still don’t think that the Russians will come to the games without national symbols. Putin doesn’t like it.
If the embed is not visible on your device, you can watch it from here.
CEO of the Finnish Olympic Committee Taina Susiluoto told Iltalehte on Friday that the news did not surprise.
– The position of the Finnish Olympic Committee is the same as before: In our opinion, the time for this decision was not yet right. Last week, we brought up the common position of the Nordic countries on the matter.
– We could have expected that such a decision would be coming, because discussions have taken place in the background, Susiluoto continued.