“This is the legalization of war.” The legend of Ukrainian tennis explained why the Russians were admitted to the Olympic Games

In the summer of 2024, the Olympic Games will be held in Paris. The IOC has already allowed athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate, but under neutral status. This means that they will only be able to compete in individual sports and without national flags.

Why did the IOC allow Russians and Belarusians to compete

Stakhovsky emphasizes: the neutral status “slightly depresses Russian athletes, but in general it does not change anything”. When a representative of Belarus won a major tennis competition, the self-proclaimed president of Belarus said that everyone knew where she was from. She used the same rhetoric,” the tennis player gives an example.

He adds that the neutral status also implies the non-involvement of the athletes of the aggressor countries in Russia's war in Ukraine and the power structures of their states.

However, Ukraine provides the evidence base that these Russians and Belarusians support the regimes in their countries.

“When Ukraine provides an evidence base, they have some legal company that reviews and mostly answers that it is not enough. That is, conventionally, it is not enough to receive state awards, to stand on stage with symbols of war in support of the military. This is just an alibi decision of the Olympic Committee,” explains Stakhovsky.

Sergiy Stakhovsky at competitions during his active tennis career (photo: instagram.com/stako_s)

In addition, according to him, we can observe absurd situations when Ukrainian athletes will oppose the Russians.

Serhiy emphasizes that now the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has changed the rhetoric regarding sports in the world.

“The IOC is a structure that earns huge amounts of money. We had to formulate our strategy earlier, how we want to prevent the Russians from entering the Olympics. Our position consists of sentiments, we wanted to point out precisely the inequality and absurdity of this, and it was necessary to judge the economic aspect with a cold head,” the athlete believes.

“If we could transfer the Olympic committees of other countries to our side states, unite with them and propose a boycott of the Olympics, in this way the Olympic Committee would not be leveraged to admit the Russians or receive a boycott from European states, because economically it would have a devastating effect on the entire system of the Olympic Committee,” Stakhovsky reflects.< /p>