Russia to keep pushing IOC to drop anti-Russian bias — diplomat

MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/. Russia will keep pressing the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to abandon its anti-Russian bent, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.
“Russia will carry on with its efforts aimed at developing sports as well as international sports cooperation, creating conditions for the participation of sports representatives, national athletes in international competitions,” she said.
“We will continue demanding that the IOC authorities abandon their destructive anti-Russian line and strictly observe the fundamental principles of the international Olympic Movement,” she added.
The 2024 Summer Olympic Games were hosted by the French capital of Paris between July 26 and August 11. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed a team of 15 Russian athletes to participate in the 2024 Summer Olympics as neutrals.
Zakharova said commenting on the 2024 Olympics in Paris that they would go down in history as a ‘scandal.’
“Speaking about Russia’s participation, many sports experts agreed that with the Russian Olympic team being absent, most sports events lost the edge of competitiveness,” she said. “We are speaking here about new records and spectators’ appeal.”
The Russian team’s lineup for the 2024 Olympics included tennis players Daniil Medvedev, Pavel Kotov, Roman Safiullin, Yekaterina Alexandrova, Mirra Andreeva, Diana Shnider, Yelena Vesnina; canoeists Zakhar Petrov, Alexey Korovashkov, Olesya Romasenko; swimmer Yevgeny Somov; cyclists Tamara Dronova, Alyona Ivanchenko, Gleb Syritsa; and Anzhela Bladtseva, who competes in trampoline event.
Team USA finished the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in the top of the medal standings having packed 126 medals (40 gold, 44 silver and 42 bronze), leaving in 2nd place China with 91 medals (40 gold, 27 silver and 24 bronze) and Japan with 45 medals (20 gold, 12 silver and 13 bronze).
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.