MOSCOW, May 2. /TASS/. The organizers of the 2024 Paris Olympics denying Russian volunteers the right to serve at the upcoming Summer Games is outright discrimination, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
"It [the act of discrimination] is obvious, there's no other way to look at it," he told journalists in response to a question about whether Russian volunteers were being discriminated against.
"We can only express regret, because among the fans, among the guests of the Olympics there will be a lot of Russian-speaking people, there will be a lot of Russian people - they live in other countries, but they will come to France," Peskov stated.
According to him, "in this case, the organizers, in a not so hospitable move, are depriving people of possibly being helped by volunteers who could best assist them in making their stay in the French capital more pleasant."
One of the Russian volunteers, selected earlier to serve at the 2024 Olympics in Paris and speaking on condition of anonymity, told TASS earlier in the week that France had turned down her accreditation application as well as those of more than 20 Russian nationals residing in France who wished to serve at the upcoming Olympics this summer.
According to her statement to TASS, "I contacted more than 20 Russians whom I worked at several Olympics with and who also filed volunteer applications. All of these people, who have vast expertise, have been denied as well."
"The Organizing Committee wrote to me that it is unaware of the reasons why the French authorities have turned down my application. Under France’s domestic security code, the Organizing Committee referred my data to the relevant administrative body for a check. I could have been accredited only after its approval, but, regrettably, my application was declined," she said.
"I am very upset to receive the refusal. Bearing in mind the fact that many volunteers from Russia took part in Olympics before, I think that all applicants with Russian passports have been denied accreditation," she added.
The 2024 Paris Olympics Volunteer Program Director, Alexandre Moreno-Conde, announced on March 21, 2023 in response to a question about whether volunteers with Russian and Belarusian citizenship would be barred from the upcoming Games, that the volunteer program was open for everyone, without exception.
The 2024 Summer Olympic Games will be hosted by the French capital of Paris between July 26 and August 11.
IOC’s regulations against Russia
The International Olympic Committee Executive Board convened for a meeting at the Olympic House in Lausanne, Switzerland, on March 19-20 and following the opening day it decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in the Parade of Athletes and also exclude them from the 2024 Olympics overall medal standings.
The IOC, however, ruled that Russian athletes, cleared to participate in the upcoming Olympics, would not have to sign anything denouncing their country’s special military operation in Ukraine.
On October 12, 2023, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) until further notice after the Russian organization included the Olympic councils of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions as its members.
The Swiss-based CAS registered on November 6, 2023 an appeal from the ROC against the IOC’s decision on the Russian governing Olympic body’s suspension.
The suspension means that the ROC cannot act as a national Olympic committee or receive financing from the Olympic movement. The IOC however reserved the right to clear Russian athletes to take part in the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 as neutrals. Later, IOC President Thomas Bach said that Russian athletes should have no affiliation with the ROC if they want to compete at the Olympic Games.