MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. The organizing country of the 2024 Olympic Games is solely responsible for keeping athletes safe during the Summer Games in Paris, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
At a news briefing on Friday, asked whether Russia would take extra measures to protect its national athletes at the upcoming Olympics in France, Peskov replied: "No."
"There is no such possibility and actually, in line with the IOC [the International Olympic Committee] regulations, the host country is responsible for providing security," Peskov said.
French special services recommended earlier to cancel the scheduled opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics in Paris citing security threats. The 2024 Summer Olympic Games will be hosted by the French capital of Paris between July 26 and August 11.
Peskov said that Russia already has experience in providing security at the Olympics, when it hosted the 2014 Winter Games in the country’s Black Sea resort city of Sochi.
"This issue [of security provision] was taxing, demanding and complicated area of work," he continued. "However, as you may all know, the IOC authorities recognized the Olympics in Sochi as one of the best in the history of the Winter Games."
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.