Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, Minister of Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, qualified Thursday on RMC/BFMTV of “consistent” the decision announced by the IOC to exclude the Russians from the naval parade of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. The Russians who will participate in the Olympics under a neutral banner will not join the parade of national teams, but “they will have the opportunity to experience the event”, indicated the IOC on Tuesday.
It is “a coherent decision, Russia is not going to parade during the opening ceremony,” said the minister. But once the parade on the Seine is over, “individual athletes, at Place du Trocadéro when the athletes will mix among themselves, if they wish, will be able to attend this part. But Russia as a State and Nation is excluded from these Games and everyone understands that,” she said.
For the closing ceremony, “it’s the same philosophy”, she said, specifying: “When we wage a war of aggression of this type (in Ukraine), when we have its Olympic committee which is suspended , we are not represented as a state and nation during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. On the other hand, athletes, provided that they do not support the conflict and have no links with the Russian army or Russian or Belarusian government agencies, are admitted on a completely individual basis. But they do not represent a team or a delegation. There will be no anthem, no flag, no consistent accounting of their medals. It is this very strict regime of neutrality which will be orchestrated and verified step by step by the IOC and the international federations. »
In response, Russia accused the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday of “sloping into racism and neo-Nazism” and of being guilty of “discrimination” and “intimidation”, the day after the imposition of new restrictions. to Russian athletes for the 2024 Olympics.
