Paris Mayor wants Russia banned from 2024 Olympics

The mayor of Paris does not want Russia to compete at the 2024 Olympic Games while the war in Ukraine continues.

Hidalgo said “it is not possible to parade as if nothing had happened” while “the bombs continue to rain down on Ukraine”.

She added that a neutral banner “doesn’t really exist because sometimes there are athletes who are dissidents. They march and compete under the refugee banner”.

“The neutral banner was a subject of doping and that was the choice they had made,” she continued. “I am not in favour of that option. I would find that totally indecent.”

Ukraine has threatened to boycott the Paris Olympics if the IOC’s plan goes ahead.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky visited Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London on Wednesday, with the British government reiterating its stance that Russia and Belarus should not be allowed to compete at the Games.

“We, and indeed many other countries, have been unequivocal on this throughout and we want to ensure that we continue to speak with one voice on this and make that clear to the IOC,” the prime minister’s official spokesman said.

Ukrainian world heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk said any medals Russian athletes won under a neutral banner would be “medals of blood”.

In a video message directed to IOC president Thomas Bach, posted on his official Instagram account, Usyk said: “Russian Armed Forces invaded our country and kill civilians. Russian army is killing Ukrainian athletes and coaches and destroying sports grounds as well as sports halls.

“The medals that Russian athletes are going to win are medals of blood, death and tears. Let me wish you to have peaceful sky above you and to be in good health and happy.”

Ukrainian tennis player Elina Svitolina has called for Russian and Belarusian athletes to be banned from the Paris Olympics.

She recently visited her home country for the first time since the start of the war and said she was saddened to see the destruction and the suffering of people, including athletes.

“Almost all sports venues have been destroyed,” she said.

“When the war is still here and people are still dying because of the Russian army, we can’t go and lead normal lives like nothing is happening.

“I hope we don’t have to make this decision of boycotting the Olympics.”

On Tuesday, the Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish Olympic Committees backed calls for the ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes to be upheld, saying “now is not the right time to consider their return”.

Last week, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland all voiced their opposition to the inclusion of athletes from Russia and Belarus, who were banned following the former’s invasion of Ukraine last February.

Latvia’s Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said it would be “unacceptable” for athletes from the two countries to participate in 2024, while Poland’s sport and tourism minister Kamil Bortniczuk believes as many as 40 countries could boycott the next Olympics – thus making the whole event “pointless”.

The IOC called on federations to exclude athletes from Russia and Belarus following the invasion of Ukraine and banned the nations from last year’s Winter Paralympics – although athletes were allowed to compete under a neutral flag.

Further sanctions were announced across other sports, including football, rugby, Formula 1, cycling and swimming, while Russian and Belarusian tennis players were banned from playing at Wimbledon.

However, the IOC said last month it would “explore a pathway” for athletes from the two nations to compete at Paris 2024.

That move has been criticised in a joint statement from Athletes for Ukraine and athlete association Global Athlete, which said the decision shows the IOC “endorses Russia’s brutal war and invasion of Ukraine”.

The UK government condemned the plan as a “world away from the reality of war”.

Mr Zelensky says allowing Russia to compete in Paris would amount to showing that “terror is somehow acceptable”. (BBC)