35 countries will be against the participation of Russian athletes in the Olympics

The Ministry of Education, Science and Sports of Lithuania announced on Friday that a coalition of 35 countries, including the Baltic States, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, will demand that athletes from Russia and Belarus not be admitted to the 2024 Olympics in Paris. According to the representative of the ministry Yurgita Shyugjinene, such a decision was made at an online meeting of the sports ministers of 35 countries. According to her, the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky also took part in the meeting.

At the end of January, the International Olympic Committee proposed to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete if they did not speak out for the war in Ukraine. The Committee insists that no athlete should be deprived of the opportunity to participate in competitions only because of his passport. According to the proposal of the IOC, if allowed, Russian and Belarusian athletes will compete under a neutral flag.

Earlier, the Minister of Sports of Poland, Kamil Bortnychuk, spoke about the intention to create a coalition against the admission of participants from Russia and Belarus to the Olympics. The authorities of the Baltic states declared that if Russian and Belarusian athletes were allowed to compete, their national teams could boycott the Olympics.

Meanwhile, Kamil Bortnychuk came up with the idea of ​​creating a “team in exile” for the Olympics in Paris, which could include Belarusians and Russians opposing the regimes of Putin and Lukashenko. He believes that this will help the international community “to avoid being accused that we are guided by nationality, that there is any discrimination based on the existing passport.”