Ukrainian athletes banned from international competitions alongside Russian or Belarusian competitors
Ukraine's Ministry of Youth and Sport has banned athletes from entering international Olympic and non-Olympic sports competitions, where they could face competitors from Russia or Belarus, Politico reports.
"We lost out diplomatically when the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee and the Ministry of Sport failed to convince the IOC [International Olympic Committee] to ban Russians. Now our athletes have become hostages of this situation," said Zhan Beleniuk, a Ukrainian parliamentarian and 2020 Olympic champion in Greco-Roman wrestling.
The ban follows a recommendation made by the Ukrainian government at the end of March. The International Olympic Committee had said at the time that Russian and Belarusian athletes should participate in the 2024 Olympics as neutrals - without a flag or national anthem - despite the Ukrainian government's campaign to ban them.
"It is not up to governments to decide which athletes can participate in which international competitions," the IOC said in a statement.
Referring to Kiev's boycott decision, the IOC said "such a decision would only hurt the Ukrainian athletics community and will in no way affect the war that the world wants to stop and that the IOC has so vehemently condemned."
