The Olympic summit discussed the participation of russian and belarusian athletes on strictly neutral terms, reaffirmed support for Ukrainian athletes, and criticized politically motivated sporting events in Russia. The IOC maintained its position on the neutrality of athletes and spoke out against the politicization of sport.
In Switzerland, the Communiqué of the 12th Olympic Summit was held at the Olympic House in Lausanne. Olympic Summit. At the invitation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) leading representatives of the Olympic movement met to discuss the most pressing issues of organizing the Olympic Games. In particular, the summit touched upon the issue of participation of athletes from russia and belarus in the upcoming Olympic competitions. The results of this meeting were reported on the official website of the Olympic Games Committee, UNN reports.
Details
The first issue at this meeting was the implementation of the Peace Mission.
The participants of the Summit welcomed the United Nations (UN) resolution A/RES/78/10: "Building a peaceful and better world through sport and the Olympic ideal". ideal."
During the discussion of this resolution, the russian government sharply criticized the position of the Olympic movement regarding restrictions for athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports. However, after discussion, the resolution was approved by an overwhelming majority of 118 member states.
Only two countries abstained: the russian Federation and the Syrian Arab Republic. No country voted against the resolution.
It is noted that this document emphasizes that the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be "a unifying event and an important opportunity to to harness the power of sport to promote an atmosphere of peace, development, sustainability tolerance and understanding, accessibility and inclusion". The participants of the Olympic Summit expressed gratitude to the Member States that supported the resolution.
In particular, all participants expressed confidence that the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris 2024 will become a symbol of peace and unity. They will unite billions of people around the world with a common vision of peaceful competition. This will be made possible thanks to the adoption of the UN Olympic Truce Resolution A/RES/78/10. It contains "the greetings of all delegations of athletes of national Olympic and and Paralympic Committees, as well as the Olympic Refugee Organization and Paralympic teams admitted by the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee to participate in the Games". In addition, this resolution supports the autonomy of sport and the political neutrality of the IOC, as enshrined in the enshrined in the Olympic Charter.
Representatives of the International Summer Sports Federations informed the Summit that, following very strict IOC guidelines, certain neutral athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports have participated in a large number of competitions, under these strict conditions, and these events have largely gone off without incidents, with only one notable exception.
The Summit was also informed that despite the suspension of the Olympic Committee of russia (ROC), the IOC has not changed its recommendations regarding for the participation of individual neutral athletes (AINs) under these harsh conditions. It was emphasized that such protection of the rights of individual athletes to participate in competitions, despite the suspension of their National Olympic Committee (NOC), is a well-established practice that respects human rights and has been implemented in a number of suspended NOCs during the past Olympic Games. The activities of the ROC had to be suspended due to a unilateral decision to include in its membership regional sports organizations subordinated to the NOC of Ukraine, which is a violation of the Olympic Charter, as it violates the territorial integrity of the NOC of Ukraine.
In addition, they welcomed the strict conditions announced by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) for World Paralympic sport, which are are consistent with the conditions set out by the IOC.
The IOC also noted that the participation of AIN athletes in the Olympic Games can only take place only under the existing strict conditions. Neither the qualification system developed by the respective international federations, nor the number of allocated quotas for the sport will not be changed for AIN with russian or belarusian passports. They will have to meet all eligibility criteria applicable to any Olympic athlete.
The participants reaffirmed the continued solidarity and support of the Ukrainian athletes and the Ukrainian Olympic community from the entire Olympic movement.
A separate issue for discussion was the politicization of sport. was the politicization of sport.
The summit participants noted that the UN Armistice Resolution (A/RES/78/10) supports "the independence and autonomy of sport, as well as the mission of the International Olympic Committee to lead the Olympic Movement and the International Paralympic Committee to lead the Paralympic Movement and recognized the unifying and reconciliatory the unifying and reconciliatory nature of the Olympic Games and major international sporting events and major international sporting events, and that such events are organized in a spirit of peace, mutual understanding, friendship, tolerance and the inadmissibility of any discrimination."
Contrary to this resolution, the russian government, according to the decree of the President of the Russian Federation intends to organize clearly politically motivated sporting events in Russia.
WADA has expressed its strong opposition to such events from an anti-doping point of view. The WADA President emphasized that it would be contrary to the spirit of the World Anti-Doping Code to hold such an event in a country that does not meet the iance case against compliance case against RUSADA, which was recently referred to the Court of Arbitration for Sport Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), is that russia cannot receive any major competitions. Furthermore, such events would be organized by the same Russian government, the government that was involved in the systemic doping program at the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014, and later in the manipulation of anti-doping data. Under these circumstances, athletes could not be sure of safe and fair competition.
The Chairman of the IOC Athletes' Commission strongly supported WADA's position. In addition, the Summit was informed that athletes would be very concerned about being forced to to participate in such politically motivated sporting events, thus becoming part of a political propaganda campaign.
The ANOC President and representatives of the continental NOCs associations stated that their organizations will in no way support the participation of athletes in such events.
