«Russia and Belarus out of Paris 2024»- Corriere.it

With 444 votes in favour, only 26 against and 37 abstentions, the parliament of the European Community harshly condemned the International Olympic Committee on Friday for its decision to let Russia and Belarus participate in the Paris 2024 Games under a neutral flag. The text voted by the European parliamentarians leaves little room for interpretation. In fact, the assembly reiterates «its condemnation of the recent decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in the qualifiers for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games under a neutral flag, which goes against the articulated isolation of those countries and will be used by both regimes for propaganda purposes. The assembly calls on its member states and the international community to exert pressure on the IOC to reverse this decision, a source of embarrassment to the world of international sport, and to adopt a similar position on any other sporting, cultural or scientific event.

15 days after the very hard attack of Zelensky to the Cio (“They kill our children and our athletes, you make them compete”), a week after the first meeting of a block of 37 nations who would be against the decision of the Olympic committee and partly willing to boycott it if it were confirmed , the resolution of the European Parliament is an inescapable message to the president of the IOC Thomas Bach who, in a letter that should have remained confidential, had even threatened the president of the Ukrainian Olympic Committee and minister of sport with sanctions Guttsait, former champion of fencing like him. “Your attempt to influence public opinion is extremely regrettable – wrote Bach, after recalling without too much elegance the economic and logistical aid offered to Ukrainian athletes – and a boycott will be interpreted as a violation of the Olympic Charter”. Translation: if you continue like this you will be at risk of exclusion from international competitions. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of the city that will host the Games, also joined the anti-CIO front, declaring: “As long as the Russians and Belarusians continue to wage war on Ukraine – explained the Hidalgo returning from a mission in Kiev – their athletes must not find a place in sporting trials and therefore not even in the Olympics here in Paris. I have no doubt that the IOC will express itself shortly in this sense».