Joint Statement from the Athletes of Ukraine and Global Athlete

22 September 2022: As the IOC uses their Olympic pawns to test the waters on bringing back Russia and Belarus into the Olympic Movement, athletes from around the globe remain steadfast in their calls for Russia and Belarus to be banned from international sport events.

Over the past eight years Russian and Belarusian authorities have torn families apart and brutally taken the lives of thousands of innocent Ukrainian citizens. While we recognize that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) cannot stop the violence, we do know that as leaders of sport the IOC stands in a powerful position to prevent Russia from continuing to use athletes as a tool for foreign policy. This has been a consistent tactic of Russian authorities and will almost certainly prevail if given the opportunity to utilise athletes once more.

In using the Olympic Games to advance its geopolitical agenda in the lead-up to the invasion of Ukraine, Russia made sport a theater of this war. Russia used the 2022 Beijing Olympics, on the eve of the invasion, to strengthen its relationship with China. In 2014, Russia similarly used a home Olympics in Sochi and a state sponsored doping program to bolster its international standing before annexing Crimea. Russia has also used its athletes, both before and during the war, in state propaganda and has elevated athletes to high-ranking positions in the armed forces. Russia has proven time and time again that athletes are an integral part of its foreign policy. If Russian athletes are allowed to return to international competition, the Russian state will again use the athletes to bolster the war effort and distract from the atrocities in Ukraine.

Additionally, with the IOC announcing last week the adoption of the Strategic Framework on Human Rights, they cannot negate the reality that the brutal, unprovoked invasion by Russia and Belarus on a peaceful Ukrainian nation is a clear breach of Human Rights and a violation of the Olympic Charter.   

Furthermore, allowing Russian and Belarusian sport officials and executives to hold positions in international sport provides untethered access to influence decision making to ease restrictions on both countries.

We recognize the acute affect that banning Russian and Belarusian athletes will have on their lives and pursuit of performance on the world stage. Athletes are not the powerbrokers who are responsible for this war. This is a hard stance with real human cost. However, the decision to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes far outweigh the reasons for terminating a ban.

It is a difficult but an important task to maintain the suspension of both Russian and Belarusian athletes and their sporting officials from all international sporting events until Russia fully withdraws from Ukraine. The IOC holds significant responsibility to ensure that international sport is not a stage for Russian foreign policy and must enact on this clear breach of Human Rights and the Olympic Charter.

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