The president of the Portuguese Olympic Committee (COP) on Friday spoke out in favor of reintegrating Russian and Belarusian athletes into international competitions, in line with guidelines from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which wants to “explore” ways to doing.
“I think so. The position of the IOC is the most reasonable.
COP president defends that “sport should send a message to the parties to understand each other, it should not support one side against the other”, at a time when participation in the 2024 Paris Olympics is being debated .
“Sport should be a factor of pacification and rapprochement between the warring parties. Everything that has been done – not in the sense of finding balanced and peaceful solutions, but of arming one side against the other – does not seem to me to be the should work. And you can see what happens…”, he evaluated.
Constantino recalls that “it is part of the history” of the sport to send signals leading to “approach and pacification of the relations of the conflicting parties”, regardless of whether countries and governments “understand it or not”.
The fact that Ukraine admits to boycotting Paris2024 in case of reintegration of Russians and Belarusians and that several countries have already expressed their opposition to the opening guidelines of the IOC, including the United Kingdom and Denmark, which criticize the change The opinion of IOC President Thomas Bach was taken as normal by the Portuguese leader, “as there have been similar situations in the past” during the biggest event in the world.
Constantino reveals that the issue was never discussed between the COP and the Portuguese government, ensuring the “completely autonomous and independent position” of the body he heads, with the course being “tuned” by sports organizations.
“There is a sign of openness from the IOC and developments are still difficult to define, to predict, namely what will be the reaction of many countries that may try to determine the positioning of their national Olympic committees,” he admitted .
José Manuel Constantino argues that it is better to “wait for new developments” regarding the IOC signals, assuming that at this point “it is premature to close any scenario as they are all open”.
The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, is in line with the IOC, while the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensnki, demanded from his French counterpart the presence of athletes from countries complicit in the military aggression, which took place on February 24, 2022. started to ban.
The Paris2024 organizing committee has no decision-making powers and the IOC reminded on Wednesday that the “sole authority” in this matter rests with the international federations.
Source: DN
