On September 15, an extended meeting of the ROC Athletes’ Commission was held at the Luzhniki Grand Sports Arena. After the official opening ceremony and a plenary session with the participation of Russian sports leaders, the President of the Russian Olympic Committee Stanislav Pozdnyakov, the Head of NOC Belarus Viktor Lukashenko, and the Chair of the ROC Athletes’ Commission Sofya Velikaya took questions from journalists.
Stanislav Pozdnyakov:
– Today we have a special holiday – this is how you can call the extended meeting of the ROC Athletes’ Commission, which was attended by our friends and colleagues from the Republic of Belarus. We discussed the current problems of Russian and Belarusian sports, made plans for the future, touched upon joint projects, and continued the work started in Minsk in the spring.
Despite the fact that Russian and Belarusian sports have been subjected to illegal and unfair sanctions, athletes continue to train and compete. I would like to note that the lion’s share of these competitions took place in Minsk, which gave Russian athletes the opportunity to get to know the history and cultural traditions of our fraternal people and build new sports ties, thereby adding confidence in the future.
Most international sports organizations can see the futility of sanctions. Therefore, there is hope that these restrictions will be annulled in the very near future. The prerequisites for this are not only our competitions, which are closely watched in the West with their sufficiently high level acknowledged, but also the position of the Athletes’ Commissions of different countries, which form an integral part of the Olympic movement.
If in the spring the introduction of sanctions was presented to us as creating equal conditions due to the non-participation of Ukrainian athletes in competitions, now it is all about protecting Russian and Belarusian athletes from negative impact during competitions. Such a transformation of rhetoric suggests positive changes, including in the media coverage of the collective West.
By the way, the Olympic movement is not only made up of unfriendly Western countries. It consists of 206 National Olympic Committees around the world. Attempts by a limited number of states to influence the entire Olympic community have failed. This can already be stated with certainty. Gradually, there is an awareness of the impasse in which the sports movement has entered, allowing the intervention of certain political forces.
It is important to note that our athletes should be ready at any moment to join the fight for Olympic licenses, and the task of the National Olympic Committees of Russia and Belarus, the All-Russian and Belarusian sports federations, as well as government organizations is to fully prepare our Olympians for the qualifying procedures.
Viktor Lukashenko:
– First of all, I would like to thank the Russian Olympic Committee for inviting me to this very important event. Athletes from our countries are now interested in almost the same issues – proof of this could be seen during today’s plenary session.
Indeed, athletes should calmly and systematically prepare for the Games in Paris in order to successfully pass the upcoming Olympic selection process. Here I fully agree with Stanislav Pozdnyakov.
We can also observe the change of rhetoric at the international level. We very much hope that the sanctions will gradually come to an end, but for now we are intensifying contacts with friendly countries through the SCO and BRICS, whose population is more than half of the world’s population. Here we see a serious prospect in terms of holding competitions and international cooperation in general.
Sofya Velikaya:
– The main task of the ROC Athletes’ Commission with the support of the Russian Olympic Committee was to gather as many athletes as possible in one place and organize a dialogue with the leaders of various sports organizations. I think we have succeeded. I hope that such meetings will become regular and, most importantly, productive. It is very important that the President of the ROC, the Head of the Ministry of Sport, and the Executive Director of the Russian Olympians Foundation Alexander Katushev, with whom the Commission closely cooperates as part of various educational programs, are present today.
As Chair of the Commission, today I spoke about the work we are doing to ensure that the international community knows what we are up to. We are training and we are not giving up. We have all the conditions necessary to return to the sports arena fully armed when the opportunity presents itself.
Yesterday, at the initiative of the International Olympic Committee, a conference call was held, where athletes from all over the world participated. We took this opportunity to reiterate our position. The more people pay attention to these existing problems, the faster we can achieve the lifting of these unjust and illegal sanctions.
Talking about yesterday’s speeches, I would like to especially note the statement of the Chairman of the Athletes’ Commission of United World Wrestling (UWW) Arsen Julfalakyan. He stressed that the majority of wrestlers did not agree with the removal of Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competitions. I hope that this is not the last such statement, and we will constantly be shown support from the international federations.
