MOSCOW, May 15. /TASS/. President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach’s statement that all comments made by Russian athletes on social media should be scoured to look for reasons to bar them from the 2024 Olympics is "criminal," Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.
She recalled Bach's statement that the IOC executives allegedly asked Ukraine to monitor every statement made by Russian athletes on the Internet and on social media that could later serve as a reason to deny them the right to participate in the 2024 Summer Olympics in France.
"We would have previously labeled this as the height of dishonesty, but in actuality it is a criminal statement," Zakharova said. "This reasoning goes not just against, but in direct opposition to all documents that regulate the work of Thomas Bach."
She stressed that the fundamental principle of the Olympic Charter stipulates that everyone should have the right to take part in sports without any discrimination regarding internationally recognized human rights within the competence of the Olympic Movement.
According to Zakharova, due to purely political reasons, certain countries which the West doesn’t like, are being excluded from the global sports family via the IOC.
"We are convinced that by resorting to such unscrupulous, illegal, unlawful and immoral steps the IOC leadership is discrediting itself, undermining the Olympic Charter and creating chaos in the world of global sports," she added.
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.