Zelenskyy starts Marathon of Honesty to prevent Russian athletes from entering Olympics

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced the beginning of a Marathon of Honesty, which will be aimed at cleansing hypocrisy from the international Olympic leadership and preventing any attempts to bring representatives of Russia back into world sport.

Source: Zelenskyy's evening address 

Details: The head of state expressed his disappointment with the statements made by Thomas Bach, the current President of the International Olympic Committee, who wants to bring Russian athletes back to international competitions. "I spoke with him several times. And I never heard how he was going to protect sport from war propaganda," Zelenskyy noted.

He pointed out that tyrannical regimes often use sport for their ideological interests. "It is obvious that any neutral flag of Russian athletes is stained with blood," said Zelenskyy.

Quote: "I do not want to get into what exactly motivated Mr Bach to promote such an initiative. But we will do everything we can so that the world protects sport from political and any other influence from the terrorist state, which is simply inevitable if Russian athletes participate in competitions, especially at the Paris Olympics.

Ukrainian athletes are being forced to defend the lives of their loved ones and the freedom of our people against Russian aggression. Russian strikes have taken the lives of hundreds of Ukrainian men and women who could have brought their talents to world sport.

Russia must stop aggression and terror, and only after that will it be possible to talk about Russian participation in the context of the Olympic movement. The Olympic principles and war are fundamentally opposed to each other."

Zelenskyy also invited Bach to Bakhmut so that he could see for himself that there is no such thing as neutrality.

Background:

• Earlier, Zelenskyy expressed his frustration caused by the presence of the President of Russia’s Olympic Committee at the IOC summit on 9 November and the intention to bring Russian and Belarusian athletes back to international competitions under a neutral flag.
• Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, has invited Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), to the city of Druzhkivka, Donetsk Oblast.

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