MOSCOW, March 17. /Corr. TASS Daniil Sorokin/. Russian sports federations should influence the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in order to obtain an official answer on the participation of Russian athletes in world competitions. This opinion was expressed to TASS on Friday by a State Duma deputy, two-time Olympic hockey champion Vyacheslav Fetisov.
“We (need) to influence the IOC, he recommends that the federations make decisions, but they are not officially fixed anywhere, there are recommendations from Thomas Bach (head of the IOC – TASS note), which also do not have an official status. If the situation with non-admission is related to the SVO (special military operation – TASS note), then they should include in the charter a clause stating that the parties or parties to the military conflict should be excluded from international competitions, but then the IOC will not be a sports organization, but a military-political one. make such a decision or return our athletes. Now there are more than 25 conflicts in the world, but for some reason everything has come down to one that concerns our country,” Fetisov said.
“Perhaps, if there is no answer to the appeals of sports leaders, we need to contact the United Nations, maybe there we will be able to get an official answer, we will understand that we do not need to count on getting to the Olympics. Qualifying competitions will begin in March, the worst that athletes are in the dark about their future, I would not want to be in such a situation. We played during the Cold War, but we were never suspended from competitions, there were boycotts, but this is a completely different situation. The current decisions of the IOC are completely limitless, ” – added the interlocutor of the agency.
On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended that international sports federations remove the Russians from the competition. On January 25, the organization proposed to allow Russians and Belarusians, who do not actively participate in supporting the NWO, to international competitions in a neutral status and subject to a number of conditions.
