SAMARANCH’S REMARKS ON RUSSIA SPARK OUTRAGE IN UKRAINE

Ukraine has slammed IOC presidential candidate for suggesting Russia could rejoin the Olympic movement if it complies with the rules, calling the idea “unacceptable and outrageous.”

Sama­ranch, son of a for­mer IOC pres­i­dent, is vying to suc­ceed Thomas Bach next year. Speak­ing at a sports con­fer­ence in Budapest, he acknowl­edged Russia’s vio­la­tions of the Olympic Char­ter but empha­sized that if those vio­la­tions end, Rus­sia should be rein­te­grat­ed.

This stance infu­ri­at­ed Kyiv. Ukraine’s Sports Min­is­ter Matviy Bid­ny and For­eign Min­is­ter Andriy Sybi­ga respond­ed angri­ly, crit­i­ciz­ing Sama­ranch for seem­ing­ly down­play­ing the war’s impact. They accused Rus­sia of using sports as pro­pa­gan­da and said the nation con­tin­ues its bru­tal war against Ukraine, mak­ing any rein­state­ment talks pre­ma­ture.

Sama­ranch’s com­ments stand in stark con­trast to Sebas­t­ian Coe, anoth­er IOC pres­i­den­tial hope­ful, who firm­ly oppos­es the inclu­sion of Russ­ian ath­letes. Samaranch’s sug­ges­tion that the Ukraine war is “just one of 40-plus con­flicts” fur­ther fueled out­rage, with Ukrain­ian offi­cials stat­ing his remarks ignore the ongo­ing atroc­i­ties.

For Belaru­sian ath­letes, this polit­i­cal fall­out is sig­nif­i­cant. Many are now seen as com­plic­it with Rus­sia, caught in the cross­fire of a con­flict they did not choose, and like­ly to suf­fer the same con­se­quences due to the close polit­i­cal ties between the two coun­tries’ author­i­tar­i­an regimes.