The Olympic committees of five Nordic countries have backed calls to keep the ban on Russian and Belarussian athletes in place for the 2024 Games in Paris.
The Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish committees issued a joint statement saying, “Now is not the time to consider their return.”
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Russians and Belarusians may be allowed to compete as neutrals, according to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
If that plan is implemented, Ukraine has threatened to boycott the Olympics in Paris.
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland all spoke out last week against the inclusion of athletes from Russia and Belarus, who were barred from competing after the former invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Latvia’s Foreign Minister said it would be “unacceptable” for athletes from the two countries to participate in 2024, while Poland’s sport and tourism minister believes as many as 40 countries could boycott the next Olympics – thus making the whole event “pointless”.
The Nordic Olympic and Paralympic Committees and Confederations of Sports said on Tuesday that they wanted to reaffirm their “steadfast support with the Ukrainian people and the demand for peace”.
“The situation with the war in Ukraine has not changed. Now is not the right time to consider their return; that is our position,” they added.
Following the invasion of Ukraine, the IOC called on federations to exclude athletes from Russia and Belarus and banned the nations from competing in the Winter Paralympics in March 2022 – though athletes could compete under a neutral flag.
Additional sanctions were imposed in other sports, including football, rugby, Formula 1, cycling, and swimming, and Russian and Belarusian tennis players were barred from competing at Wimbledon.
However, the IOC announced last month that it would “investigate a pathway” for athletes from the two countries to compete in Paris in 2024.
That move has been criticised in a joint statement from Athletes for Ukraine and the athlete association Global Athlete, which said the decision shows the IOC “endorses Russia’s brutal war and invasion of Ukraine”.
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The UK government condemned the plan as a “world away from the reality of war”.
Allowing Russia to compete in Paris would demonstrate that “terror is somehow acceptable,” according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
