Exclusion of all Russians: Schenk finds athletes discouraged

Nfter the admission of Russian and Belarusian athletes to the World Judo Championships in Qatar starting on Sunday, Ukraine withdrew its entire team from the competitions. The reason given by the Ukrainian Judo Federation in a statement is that “the majority of the (Russian, ed.) team consists of athletes who are actively serving in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and are part of the army that conquered Ukraine on February 24 attacked in 2022″. A Russian army, the association said, “is still waging a brutal full-scale war on our territory, shelling Ukrainian cities and killing civilians and children on a daily basis.” The world association IJF had given judoka from Russia and Belarus the green light for the start of the World Championships on Sunday, on condition that they compete as neutral individual athletes. Ukraine sharply criticized this point. You can see here a decision “that contradicts the recent recommendations of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of March 28, in which the IOC says that the status of a neutral athlete can only be granted to those athletes who are not part of the military.”

Meanwhile, the World Canoe Federation (ICF) wants to allow individual neutral athletes from Russia and Belarus again after a review. An independent committee was set up to review the applications, as the ICF announced. Earlier, the Russian rocket attack on residential buildings in Uman on Friday morning meant that the national canoe sprint races, which had been held in the central Ukrainian city since Monday last week and were scheduled to last until the weekend, had to be cancelled. The portal “inside the games” quoted an ICF spokesman who condemned the attack.