MINSK, July 7. /TASS/. Sport officials are ruining world sport by barring Russian athletes from international tournaments, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"There are two reasons [for banning our athletes]. This is nothing but Nazism, nationalism when athletes are barred from competitions on account of origin, nationality, geography," she said. "Another aspect is the destruction of world sport. The country, which gave so much to world sport - athletes, records, sports facilities, which hosted Olympic Games two times, is being barred from global sport, ruining it this way."

"Athletes from Belarus are facing the same discreditation. What for? For an aggression, as they allege. But we understand it only too well that this is not Russia’s aggression against Ukraine but the West’s hybrid war on our country," Zakahrova said. "Even if this were their logic, they should have taken inventory of all hotbeds of tension, all conflicts. But this has nothing to do with justice. Historically, they have been treating us as someone who must not be let use and manage their resources. This can be applied to their yearning to reshape. Distort world sport which is based on the principles of Olympism. They are seeking to substitute these principles for pseudo-ideals and pseudo-values. Just look at what is happening around genders, around the politicization of sport when some sort of a slogan or adherence to some sort of political philosophy are enough to win a victory."

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.