Paris: Polish sports and Tourism minister Kamil Bortniczuk believes that more than 40 countries are boycotting the 2024 Olympics due to the participation of the Russian and Belarussian Federation.
“I am convinced that the meeting scheduled for February 10 will lead to the conclusion that more than 30 or maybe 40 sports ministers, including those from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and Japan, will strongly reject the idea of allowing athletes from Russia and Belarus to take part in the Games. I don’t think we will have to make tough decisions before the Olympics, and if we boycott the Games, the coalition that we will be part of will be large enough to make the Games pointless”
Kamil Bortniczuk to Reuters
The IOC announced on 26th January allowing the Russian and the Belarussian athletes to compete in their own national flag. In response, Ukraine said that it will abstain from the event, allowing competitors from Belarus and Russia to participate. President Volodymyr Zelensky had a talk with Emmanuel Macron about the need to bar Russian athletes from competing in Paris. Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba charged that the IOC is stepping on the graves of tens of thousands of dead Ukrainians in order to reinstate the Russian team.
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In a joint statement, four sports ministers, including Kamil Bortniczuk, asked the IOC and international federations to maintain sanctions against Belarus and Russia.
Along with Bortniczuk, several ministers of culture from Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Anda Aka expressed their objection to athletes returning from “aggressor countries”. They also dissented allowing of sport to be used to legitimise and distract attention from Russia’s war of aggression.
Olympics has benn boycotted over six times in the paast. However, only one of them saw more than forty nations boycotting the largest multisport event of the world.
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