FILE PHOTO: The Olympic rings are pictured in front of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, May 17, 2022. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that allowing Russia to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics was tantamount to showing that “terrorism is somehow acceptable”.
Zelenskiy said he had sent a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron as part of a campaign to prevent Russian athletes from participating in the Paris Olympics.
“The International Olympic Committee’s effort to bring Russian athletes back to the Olympics is an attempt to tell the world that terrorism is somehow acceptable,” Zelenskiy said in a statement. his nightly videos.
“It’s as if you could turn a blind eye to what Russia is doing in Kherson, Kharkiv, Bakhmut and Avdiivka,” he said, referring to areas under attack by Russian forces.
Russia must not “use (the Olympics) or any other sporting event to propagate its aggression or state chauvinism,” he said.
The International Olympic Committee said last week it welcomed a proposal from the Olympic Council of Asia to give Russian and Belarusian athletes the opportunity to compete in Asia.
Zelenskiy spoke with Macron last week and has since launched a “marathon of honesty” to prevent Russian athletes from participating in the Paris Olympics. On Saturday, he said there can be no sporting neutrality at a time when his country’s athletes fight and die in war.
In his latest comment, Zelenskiy said the 20th century had seen too many mistakes that led to horrifying tragedies.
“And there was one big Olympic mistake,” he said, referring to hosting the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin when the Nazis took power. “The Olympic movement and terrorist countries should certainly not cross the road.”
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