President Putin responds to International Olympic Committee's decision to "ban" Russia

Speaking at a conference on Russian sports held in the Russian city of Perm recently, President Putin said that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had used the Olympics as a tool to exert political and racist pressure.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach speaks during a press conference ahead of the 141st IOC Session in Mumbai, India, October 12. (Source: Reuters)

On October 20, Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to suspend the membership of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).

Speaking at a conference on Russian sport held in the Russian city of Perm, President Putin said the IOC had used the Olympics as a tool for political and racist pressure.

Mr. Putin also said that an invitation to the Olympics is not an unconditional right of the best athletes, but a kind of privilege and can be won not by sports results but by politics - which has nothing to do with sports.

Previously, on October 12, at the executive board meeting in Mumbai (India), the International Olympic Committee announced that it had suspended the membership of the Russian Olympic Committee for violating the Olympic Charter.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams said the suspension decision came after the Russian Olympic Committee decided on October 5 to admit sports organizations in four regions of eastern Ukraine.

The suspension is effective "immediately", meaning the Russian Olympic Committee cannot receive any funding from the Olympic movement, the International Olympic Committee said.

However, spokesman Adams added that the IOC still reserves the right to decide on the participation of Russian athletes under neutral status at the 2024 Summer Olympics (Paris 2024) and the 2026 Winter Olympics (Winter Olympics) in the Italian city of Milan “at the appropriate time”, according to a policy adopted last year.

Russia has been at odds with the IOC since the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, where Russian athletes were found to have benefited for years from a large-scale state-sponsored doping programme – something Moscow denies.

As a result, Russian athletes deemed doping-free have been allowed to compete at the Olympics only under a neutral flag since 2018. The IOC did not say last week whether they would be allowed to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/tong-thong-putin-dap-tra-truoc-quyet-dinh-cam-cua-nga-cua-uy-ban-olympic-quoc-te-246927.html