IOC warns athletes, countries to stay away from Russia- organised games

FACING Ga a Russia- organised potential rival to the Olympics, the IOC, yesterday, yesterd urged sports and political leaders not to participate in the Friendship Gam Games due to launch weeks after the Su Summer Games in Paris.

The IOC denounced diploma diplomatic moves to promote the inaugu inaugural event in September as “a cynical attempt by the Russian Federation” to bring politics into spor sports. “The IOC strongly urges all stakeholders stakehold of the Olympic movement and all govg ernments to reject any participapartici tion in and support of, a any initiative that intends inten to fully politicize politic international sport,” it said in a statement stateme published during a meeting of its executive board chaired by Bach.

Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed last year to start organising summer and winter events under the banner of the Friendship Games, paying tens of millions of dollars in prize money.

The games aim to counter the country’s increasing isolation in international sports — and growing tensions with the IOC and Bach — since the military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

At the United Nations in New York four months ago,

Russian diplomat Maria Zabolotskaya used a debate on an Olympic truce for Paris to invite the world to the Friendship Games, citing her country’s support for “honest and fair competitions.”

The first games are scheduled in Moscow and Yekaterinburg in September, with a prize fund reported by Russian media totalling 4.6 billion rubles ($ 50 million). The Friendship Games aim to launch within weeks of the August 11 closing ceremony at the Paris Olympics, where the IOC does not pay prize money for medalists.