Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Paris Olympics chief organiser says athletes shouldn’t ‘suffer’ in Russia row

The president of the 2024 Paris Olympics organising committee on Friday said athletes should not "suffer" from decisions they do not control amid an escalating row over allowing Russians and Belarusians to compete.

Published: 4 February 2023 13:28 CET
Paris Olympics chief organiser says athletes shouldn't 'suffer' in Russia row
File photo of the Olympic Rings on the Trocadero Esplanade near the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Photo by FRANCK FIFE / AFP

The issue has divided opinion since Russia invaded Ukraine last February and used Belarusian territory to launch its offensive. That led to bans from several major sporting events.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) last week said it was examining a “pathway” to allow Russians to participate in Paris, probably as neutral athletes rather than under their national flag, a position backed by the United States on Thursday.

But Kyiv has called for a complete ban on Russian participation, with a Ukrainian presidential aide accusing the IOC of being a “promoter of war”.

The head of the Russian Olympic Committee has demanded his athletes be able to compete without restrictions, but the IOC said some sanctions against the country’s athletes would continue.

Tony Estanguet, head of the Paris Olympics organising committee, on Friday said many athletes were “not involved at all in these decisions right now and, personally, I think they shouldn’t suffer the consequences of decisions that don’t concern them”.

“We’re hoping a maximum number of delegations and athletes can live their dream of taking part in the Games,” he told AFP in the southern French city of Marseille, where the torch relay will begin in April 2024.

Tony Estanguet

President of the Paris Organising Committee of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Tony Estanguet Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP.

Estanguet, a three-time Olympic canoe champion, said it was up to the IOC, the International Paralympic Committee and individual federations to decide on delegations’ eligibility for the Games.

“My role as an organiser is to offer athletes from across the world the best organisation and security conditions,” he added.

Poland’s sports minister on Thursday said he expected up to 40 countries including Britain and European Union member states to come out against allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in Paris next year.

Sports ministers from the group have a video call scheduled for February 10th, he added.

Estonia’s prime minister on Friday suggested her country might even boycott the Olympics if Russian and Belarusian athletes were allowed to participate, while the Danish government said Russia must remain “excluded from all international sport” as the Ukraine war continues.

READ MORE: Calls to limit right to strike in Paris during the Olympics

Member comments

  1. The citizens of Russia are suffering, the solders of Russia are suffering, so sould the athletes of Russia. Until the Russian people rise up and demand change, nothing will change. The athletes are just one part of the machine that is the corrupt state of Russia. Rise up and demand change.

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

TERRORISM

Chechen arrested over Paris Olympics attack plot: ministry

French security services have arrested a Chechen teenager suspected of plotting an "Islamist-inspired" attack on a football game during the Paris Olympic Games in July and August, the interior ministry said Friday.

Published: 1 June 2024 09:06 CEST
Chechen arrested over Paris Olympics attack plot: ministry

The DGSI domestic intelligence agency “arrested a 18-year-old of Chechen origin in Saint-Etienne” in southeast France on May 22, the ministry said, calling it the “first foiled attack against the Olympic Games”.

France is on its highest alert level for attacks ahead of the Paris Games, when around 10 million visitors and 10,000 athletes are expected.

The sport is set to take place mostly in the capital, but other towns and cities around France will also host some disciplines as well as individual games.

The arrested Chechen was suspected of “actively preparing an attack against the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium [in Saint-Etienne] during the football games that will take place there,” the interior ministry said.

“He intended to attack spectators but also security forces and die as a martyr,” the statement added.

He was charged on Sunday with terrorist conspiracy and is in pre-trial detention, the national anti-terror prosecutor’s office said in a statement to AFP.

The suspected plot could set nerves jangling in France, where organisers have faced persistent questions about the risk of an attack that would seriously tarnish the world’s biggest sporting event.

An offshoot of the Islamic State group, believed to be behind a vicious attack on a Moscow concert hall in March, is known to have threatened attacks in France.

“We applaud the efficiency of the (law enforcement) services and their exceptional mobilisation to ensure the security of the Games,” the Paris organising committee said in a statement. “Security is the number one priority for Paris 2024.”

Six football games are set to take place in Saint-Etienne, an industrial town of roughly 200,000 people about an hour’s drive west of Lyon.

They begin on July 24 with Argentina versus Morocco in the men’s competition, and include a game between the French women’s team and Canada on July 28.

France as target

Concerns about the Paris Games have focused on the opening ceremony on July 26 that will take place over a six-kilometre (four-mile) stretch of the river Seine, the first time a summer Olympics has begun outside the athletics stadium.

Policing such a vast area of the capital will be a huge challenge, with 45,000 officers set to be on duty and large swathes of the centre out of bounds for everyone except ticket holders and local residents.

France has been repeatedly targeted by Islamist attackers over the past decade, often by individuals inspired by Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group. Three terror plots have been prevented since the start of the year and 50 since 2017, according to the interior ministry.

Lucas Webber, co-founder of the Militant Wire research network, told AFP that the Islamic State (IS) group, including its Khorasan offshoot in Afghanistan and Pakistan (ISKP), had “launched a new propaganda campaign to threaten and incite direct attacks against sporting events in Europe”.

“ISKP has led these efforts and called upon followers to carry out violent acts against the Olympics in France and the UEFA European Championship in Germany,” he said

Last October, a radicalised 20-year-old Chechen who had sworn allegiance to IS killed a teacher in the northern French town of Arras.

In October 2020, another teenage Chechen extremist, who had come to France as a refugee, beheaded a teacher in a suburb northwest of Paris, shocking the country.

The traditional Olympic torch relay is currently underway in France, with the flame on a 12,000-kilometre trip surrounded by a “security bubble” of 100 officers including anti-drone specialists and anti-terror police.

A total of 78 people were arrested for trying to disrupt the relay and 30 suspect drones were intercepted during the first three weeks, according to the interior ministry.

The Olympics have been attacked in the past — most infamously in 1972 in Munich and in 1996 in Atlanta — with the thousands of athletes, huge crowds and live global television audience making it a target.

SHOW COMMENTS