Russian athletes may be allowed to compete in the 2024 Olympics.
Then Sebastian Samuelsson rages.
– It is not the time to discuss this now, he says.
Russian and Belarusian athletes are not allowed to compete in winter sports right now. Since the war with Ukraine, it has been completely shut down, which means that stars like Alexander Bolshunov and Veronika Stepanova are completely absent from cross-country skiing competitions, and the same is true of the vast majority of sports in the world right now.
The great anger
The stars won’t be allowed to compete in the World Cup this winter, but there is an opening for the 2024 Olympics. The games will then be held in Paris, and last week the IOC opened the door to possibly allowing athletes from Russia and Belarus back in. Sebastian Samuelsson, Sweden’s biggest biathlon star on the men’s side, has long been open about what he thinks about the whole thing.
And when he now finds out that the IOC has plans to let the athletes into the heat again, he goes nuts.
– I think it’s regrettable and I don’t think we should see either Russians or Belarusians in sports as the situation is right now. I don’t even think it’s something we need to discuss, he says at a press conference ahead of this week’s competitions in France, according to Aftonbladet.
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“Who shall judge it?”
Sebastian Samuelsson believes that he also does not buy the reasoning from the IOC that athletes who do not support the war should be allowed to return.
– Who will judge that?, he says, and continues:
– I also think it’s problematic because we know that Russians can in many ways be pressured from home in how to express themselves. You put them in a very tricky situation as well.
Sebastian Samuelsson has throughout his career been openly critical of Russia, partly during repeated doping scandals, and now the war. He says he is tired of IOC president Thomas Bach.
– It doesn’t matter what they do, there are doping scandals and now it’s war, yet Thomas Bach is doing everything he can for Russian athletes to compete at the Olympics.
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