Russian wrestlers have decided to boycott the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The Russian Wrestling Federation announced on Saturday, July 6, that its athletes authorized to take part in the Paris Olympics had “unanimously” refused to participate.
“We do not accept the non-sporting principle of selection on which the International Olympic Committee (IOC) based its list of authorized athletes and whose aim is to undermine the unity of our team,” the Federation explained in a statement. Russian wrestlers were able to obtain 16 Olympic licenses out of 18 possible […] under conditions of threats of unfounded sanctions and restrictions.”
But in its list of Russian wrestlers allowed to participate, the IOC ultimately selected only ten, excluding the most successful, including double Olympic champion Abdulrashid Sadulaev and double world champion Zaur Uguev. At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Russian wrestlers brought home four gold medals. In this context, the presidency of the Wrestling Federation organized a meeting with the invited wrestlers and their coaches and “a decision was taken unanimously.”
Qualification conditions too strict?
At the last Summer Olympics in Japan, 330 Russian and 104 Belarusian athletes took part in the competition. While in Paris, between July 26 and August 11, only 32 Russian and 15 Belarusian athletes were among the athletes allowed to compete under the neutral IOC banner. “These are not Olympic Games, this is a parody of competition,” the president of the Russian Wrestling Federation, Mikhail Mamiashvili, told the official Tass news agency. “Unjustified dictatorship of the IOC has led to the organization itself starting to define the composition of the selections. This is already too much,” he protested.
The Russians and Belarusians had been banned from world sport after the outbreak of war in Ukraine in late February 2022, before being reinstated on December 8, 2023 by the IOC, subject to meeting a set of conditions. Among these: the qualification stage, but also the acceptance, for athletes, to compete under a neutral banner – excluding team events. That is to say without a flag, nor an anthem, and with the ban on wearing equipment in the colors of the country.
In addition, they must not have supported the Russian offensive in Ukraine, nor be linked to the army or part of a national security agency. Among the wrestlers excluded from the competition, Olympic medalists Zaur Uguev and Sadulaev, accused of supporting the war in Ukraine, in violation of the neutrality criteria imposed by the IOC. Deprived of their flag and anthem, other Russian athletes have also chosen to withdraw, denouncing “discriminatory” criteria.