German parliamentary sports commission against Russia at Paris Games

The chairman of Germany’s parliamentary sports commission, Frank Ullrich, has joined the critics on a possible re-admission of Russia athletes to international sports events including next year’s Paris Olympics.

“It is a wrong signal to think about the participation of athletes from Russia as long as Russia wages war on European soil,” Ullrich told Wednesday’s papers of the Funke publishing house.

Ullrich acknowledged that no one should be put at a disadvantage based on their social origin but that a right of everyone for life and freedom also existed.

“The lives and rights of countless people are being disregarded and extinguished through the Russian war of aggression,” Ullrich said.

Ullrich’s deputy, Philip Krämer, said that Belarusian athletes should also remain banned as long as Belarus acts as a close ally of Russia in the Ukraine war.

Russian and Belarusian athletes have been banned from most major sports events since Russia’s invasion started almost a year ago.

But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has started looking into ways how to re-admit them again for competitions including the Paris Games in 2024.

This has been met with wide-ranging criticism from several countries, sports leaders, and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo.

©dpa