MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/. The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have actually lost the contact with each other against the background of the crisis in the Olympic Movement and the politicization of sports, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.
Peskov’s statement comes in the wake of ROC President Stanislav Pozdnyakov’s announcement about his possible resignation before the end of the year.
According to the Russian presidential spokesman, Pozdnyakov’s term of office coincided with a complicated period.
"The [Russian] Olympic Committee has actually lost contact with the Olympic Movement, the International Olympic Committee," Peskov said. "This is a very difficult situation for the sports of high achievements, for our Olympians."
On October 15, Pozdnyakov proposed that the ROC Executive Committee hold early elections in December, at which time he will resign. Pozdnyakov, 51, has helmed the ROC since 2018. From 2016 to 2022, he served as the chief of the European Fencing Confederation. He is a four-time Olympic champion in saber-fencing, in addition to being a ten-time world champion.
IOC’s regulations against Russia
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) 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 2024 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 meant 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.