Liberal MP Raimundas Lopata has asked the Lithuanian National Olympic Committee (LTOK) to make every effort at international level to prevent Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing in the 2024 Olympics, even under a neutral banner.
Ukraine’s Sakharov Prize-winning paramedic Yuliia “Taira” Paievska made a similar public plea to the LTOK during a news conference in Vilnius on Friday.
The International Olympic Committee said on Wednesday that “a pathway” for Russian and Belarusians to participate in the Paris Olympics as “neutral athletes” should be “further explored”.
“No athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport,” it said in a statement.
However, Lopata, a member of the Lithuanian parliament with the Liberal Movement party, insists international competitions should boycott Russian athletes.
“We cannot watch with indifference the International Olympic Committee’s intention to allow Russians to participate in the Olympics,” Lopata, chairman of the parliamentary Committee for the Future, said in a statement.
“Russia is a terrorist state, so making concessions to athletes who were trained and continue their professional careers in that country is a humiliating bow to terrorism and a contempt for the victims of the war in Ukraine,” he said.
In Paievska’s view, allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in the Olympic Games under the Olympic flag goes against Olympic principles.
“The International Olympic Committee has decided to allow the Russian and Belarusian teams to participate in the Olympics under the white flag. This is a violation of the Olympic principle. The very idea of the Games is peace, justice and friendship among nations,” the paramedic told reporters.
“Athletes from the Russian and Belarusian national teams are also taking part in the war. So a country that is aggressive towards its neighbours cannot participate in such an event,” she said.
