Malagò: “Russian athletes at the Olympics? There are already many restrictions, no calls to war”

ROME — The streaming meeting between representatives of world (not only Western) sport and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss the location of the That is on the presence of Russian athletes to the Paris Games 2024 and the hypothesis of the boycott, has reached up to Cones. Giovanni Malagòwho chairs the Italian Olympic Committee, has tried to defend the position of the IOC and its president Thomas Bach (and it could only be like this, given that Coni reports to the Cio). “I’m with Bach,” said Malagò. While recalling that the story concerns governments – the minister Andrea Abodipresent at the international table, did not participate in the presentation on the blood passport at CONI – Malagò underlined a non-negligible aspect: “We are the country that will host the next 2026 Winter Games, we cannot ignore this combined provision”.

Malagò summarized the situation as he perceives it from the point of view of the Olympic Committee, therefore of those who implemented the maneuver to allow the participation of Russian athletes, despite the Ukrainian “veto”. “Let’s consider – said Malagò – that Bach has foreseen already very high stakes for the participation of Russian athletes in the Olympics: there is no flag, there is no anthem, as in Tokyo. There can be no declarations of support for the war of the athletes, there will be no team sports. The participants will be like stateless people, some said like refugees. We all hope that the war will end soon. There is a possibility that this will happen, but if it did the Russians could not anyway participate because they would have been prevented from taking part in the qualifying races”.