MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/. Russia hopes that the principle of ‘sports beyond politics’ will be reinstated after a new president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is elected, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.
"We [Russia] definitely hope that the principle of ‘sports beyond politics’ will prevail and count on the IOC to improve the situation," he said.
Peskov added that the Kremlin believes it to be very important for Russian athletes to participate in international tournaments.
Seven candidates vie for the IOC presidency at the organization’s 144th session in Greece between March 18 and 21. The candidates are Sebastian Coe (Great Britain), Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr (Spain), Morinari Watanabe (Japan), Kirsty Coventry (Zimbabwe), David Lappartient (France), Johan Eliasch (Great Britain) and Prince Faisal bin Hussein (Jordan).
Late last month, the International Olympic Committee’s Executive Board has accepted a resignation letter from IOC President Thomas Bach, who is now officially scheduled to step down in late June.
Olympic gold medalist Bach, 71, was elected president of the IOC in 2013 at the 125th IOC session in Buenos Aires for a term of eight years. Bach won his Olympic gold in the team foil competition at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. After serving his initial eight-year term as IOC president, he ran for another four-year term in the 2021 elections, where he was the sole candidate and was ultimately re-elected.
IOC sanctions against Russia, Belarus
On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to prohibit athletes from Russia and Belarus from participating in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.
Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.
In late March, 2023, the IOC recommended allowing individual athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in international sports tournaments, but only under specific conditions. Specifically, athletes from the two countries should not be "actively supporting" Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and must compete under a neutral status. Russia and Belarus were also banned from participating in international team events.
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.