A decree by the Ukrainian Sports Ministry prohibiting athletes from its official delegations from participating in competitions involving Russians or Belarusians was amended on Thursday and now only concerns “athletes representing the Russian Federation or the Republic of Belarus”.
This inflection seems to distance the prospect of a Ukrainian boycott of the Olympic Games in a year, since it authorizes the participation in competitions with Russians or Belarusians under neutral banner and in an individual capacity. This configuration is close to the current recommendation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow Russians and Belarusians to compete.
This new decree of the Ministry of Sports and Youth of Ukraine prohibits “participating in international competitions in which athletes representing the Russian Federation, and/or the Republic of Belarus under their national flags, or using their own national symbols , and/or expressing their affiliation with the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus in their public statements or statements”, according to the text of this decree. The previous decree prohibited any sporting confrontation with Russians or Belarusians, whatever the configuration.
This development allowed Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan to be opposed to Russian saber fencer Anna Smirnova at the Worlds in Milan on Thursday morning, participating as a “neutral individual athlete”, thus becoming the first representative of her country to face a Russian since the attack on the Kremlin against Ukraine by Moscow almost a year and a half ago, excluding tennis.
Present in Paris on Wednesday, the President of the IOC, Thomas Bach, former Olympic fencing champion (1976), repeated that the international federations applied the recommendations of the IOC (neutral banner, and on an individual basis) and that the IOC “follows close” what was currently happening in international competitions, specifically citing the Fencing Worlds.
“We have not yet made a decision about the Olympics,” Ukrainian Sports Minister and National Olympic Committee President Vadym Gutzeit, also a former fencer, told Le Monde on Tuesday. “We are waiting for the final decision and whether (Russians and Belarusians) will be allowed to participate or not.”