Olha Saladukha: More and more Ukrainian athletes are signing an open letter to the President of France Emmanuel Macron, the Minister of Sports of France Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo and the Head of the Organising Committee of the 2024 Olympics Tony Estanguet
04 January 2024, 16:06
Olha Saladukha, the MP, Chairperson of the Subcommittee on High Performance Sports and Sports Activities of the Committee on Youth and Sports, notes that athletes are turning to them for justice: “They want to ensure that russian and belarusian athletes are not allowed to participate in the Olympic Games, even in the status of "neutral". The host country, France, is well placed to do so. It is enough to ban them from entering the country and we will save world sport from a great shame.”
Recent events in Ukraine make this appeal even more urgent. The expression that russians have their hands in blood is no longer a figure of speech. This is a terrible reality. Because 30 people died in Kyiv alone as a result of the New Year's Eve hostile attack, and yesterday another 5 people were killed by russian drones and missiles.
Olha Saladukha stressed the importance of not having murderers at sporting events with decent people. Some say that the athletes are not involved in this.
But even a superficial monitoring of russian media shows their participation in russian propaganda and open support for the war. And some of them are active servicemen, so they are directly involved in the crimes.
“We have provided all the necessary information to our French partners and are waiting for their response. We still have time to prevent the aggressor's 'revenge' in sport.
Together we must save the reputation of the Olympic movement. Not only Ukraine, but the entire sports community needs a fair decision,” says Olha Saladukha.