Last week, the IOC said individual athletes from Russia and and its ally Belarus who had qualified for the Paris summer games would be allowed to compete without flags, emblems or anthems of their countries.

Mr Bach was speaking exclusively to the BBC at the UN Global Refugee Forum in Geneva on Wednesday.

Olympic sports federations had asked the IOC to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete but with no affiliation to their nations.

This was despite a number of countries - including the US and UK - calling for an all-out ban amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Ukraine itself suggested it might boycott the games, with President Volodomyr Zelensky saying Russian athletes "cannot be covered up with some pretended neutrality."

Mr Bach dismissed the threats of a boycott, saying countries that disagree "are allowed to have different political opinions".

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[–] knotthatone@lemmy.one 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I agree with this in principle, but the way they were allowed to compete as the "Russian Olympic Committee" was bullshit. You can't have a team called "totally not Russia (wink)" and expect that to be a meaningful punishment for the nations leaders

I think the athletes should only be able to compete as citizens of the world with no reference or acknowledgement of the banned country allowed.

[–] realharo@lemm.ee 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

That will never work as long as they're the only country in that situation. They would need to be mixed with athletes from other unrelated countries for this to make sense.

[–] PrinceWith999Enemies@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

The point isn’t to disguise them. The point is to call attention to their country’s misdeeds by refusing them the honor of flying their colors. Perhaps the individual athletes should still win medals, but the IOC wouldn’t assign the credit to Russia, who would not be eligible for them.