Thomas Bach stood up for Russian athletes after the words of the head of the NOC of Denmark

The President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, criticized the President of the National Olympic Committee of Denmark, Hans Natorp, for his words about the “Russians”.

Previously, Natorp opposed the return of Russian athletes to participate in international competitions. “We do not believe that the Russians should return,” said the Norwegian.

“We will not treat everyone with the same brush because of the actions of their government. This situation presents us with an insoluble dilemma. On the one hand, we cannot fully live up to our Olympic mission, which is to protect athletes and unite the whole world in a peaceful competition. We have all always agreed and insisted on this principle in the past when athletes from one country or another refused to compete with athletes from another country for political reasons.

We insisted on this principle because everyone agreed that such unifying peaceful competition is at the core of our mission. Now, unfortunately, in this unique situation, the only way to protect this mission was to recommend the non-participation of athletes only because of their passport. Sanctions can and should only be applied to those who are responsible for something, Bach said at the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) in Seoul.

At the end of February, after the start of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, the IOC executive committee recommended that international federations not allow Russians and Belarusians to compete under their auspices. Many federations followed the recommendations and suspended athletes from the two countries, some allowed them to participate in a neutral status.