London wants sponsors to back ban on Russian athletes from 2024 Olympics

The United Kingdom pleads for sponsors to support a ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Here, French athletes celebrate, at Place du Trocadéro, the designation of Paris as the host city of the Olympic Games.

RFI/Pierre René-Worms

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

Will there be Russian and Belarusian athletes at the 2024 Paris Olympics?

This Saturday, March 11, it was the British government who asked the sponsors to put pressure on the Olympic Committee to ban the participation of these athletes.

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Coca-Cola, Samsung and Airbnb, all sponsors of the

Paris 2024

Olympic Games , have received a letter from the British Minister of Culture, Lucy Frazer.

The minister asks the brands to “ 

put pressure on the IOC in the face of the risk of the use of sport for propaganda purposes by Moscow and Minsk

 ”.

►Also read 

:

Paris 2024 Olympics: the thorny question of Russian and Belarusian athletes

More concretely, it asks the sponsors to participate in the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes during the sporting event.

The United Kingdom is positioned as a fervent defender of this exclusion while the Olympic Committee has not yet fully settled the question.

Position " 

too vague

 " of the CIO

At the end of January, the Committee had sketched out a roadmap to reintegrate athletes from Russia and Belarus on the condition that they participate under a neutral flag and that they have “not actively 

supported the war in Ukraine 

”.

Many countries consider the position of the International Olympic Committee “

 too vague

 ”.

Thirty states, including France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, had asked for clarification a month ago.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is still threatening to boycott the event if Russian and Belarusian athletes participate in the Games.

In the meantime, the international fencing federation decided on Friday to reinstate Russian and Belarusian fencers in the qualifying competitions for the Olympics.

Fencing thus becomes the first sport to reintegrate athletes from Russia and Belarus under a neutral banner, one year after their exclusion due to the war in Ukraine.

►

To read also

: 

Olympic Games 2024: African Olympic Committees in favor of the integration of Russian athletes

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