Australia’s Olympic chief signals welcoming Belarus, Russia to 2032 Summer Games
Athletes are not the cause of the ongoing Russian offensive in Ukraine. "There is an opportunity to unite, not divide the world," AOC chief executive said.
- World News
- 2 min read
National Olympic Committee of Australia (AOC) on Tuesday expressed readiness to welcome the Russian and Belarusian athletes at the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane. AOC Chief Executive Matt Carroll was quoted saying by Russia's state-affiliated agency TASS that Russian and Belarusian athletes "will take part in the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane, despite the opposition of the Australian federal government".
"It's not the athletes who started the war, who are causing the grief and the tragedy," Carroll was quoted by TASS. "The AOC's position is that of the International Olympic Committee."
'Sport is the unification of the world'
According to the National Olympic Committee of Australia (AOC) chief, "Sport is the unification of the world". He argued that the Russian and the Belarusian players "did not start the conflict". Furthermore, he added that the athletes are not the cause of the ongoing Russian offensive in Ukraine. "There is an opportunity to unite, not divide the world. You remember the boycott of various countries in 1980," he told the agency.
Summer Olympic Games were hosted by the then then-Soviet Union in the present-day Russian capital of Moscow in the 1980s between July 19 and August 3. At the time, the games were boycotted by the United States in an effort to lodge protests against Soviet troops' presence in Afghanistan. In 2020, Tokyo was home to the Olympic flame. Paris is expected to host the Summer Games in 2024. According to Tass, IOC Executive Board will table a proposal to allow the Russian and Belarusian athletes to the Olympics on January 25, 2023. The players may have to vow their neutral status and confirm that they do not "actively support" Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine.
Earlier yesterday, UN Special Rapporteur for Cultural Rights Alexandra Xanthaki said that only the Russian military members implicated in “allegations of war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity or propaganda for war” should be denied neutral status and not the other athletes looking to participate in 2024 Paris Olympics. Kyiv, meanwhile demands that the IOC must ban all Russians from the 2024 Games. Most of the country’s recent Olympic medalists were affiliated with the military, it says.