Russians and Belarusians banned from European Games in Poland despite IOC recommendations

Poland has confirmed that Russian and Belarusian athletes will be banned from this year’s European Games, which is being hosted in Kraków and its surrounding region in June and July.

The decision makes Poland the first country to announce that it will not comply with yesterday’s recommendation by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that Russians and Belarusians be allowed to return to international competition by competing under a neutral flag.

The IOC’s position has been condemned by Poland’s government, which today suggested that it would discuss the possibility of boycotting next year’s Paris Olympics if Russian athletes are allowed to compete.

“The European Games [will be] without athletes from Russia and Belarus,” announced the event’s organising committee today. “We will not allow this to happen, regardless of the diplomatic efforts that are currently being made,” added its chairman, Marcin Nowak.

The committee noted that its decision is “consistent with the guidelines of the [Polish] sport and tourism ministry and the Polish Olympic Committee (POC)”, and that the POC and the European Olympic Committees (EOC) already “decided at the end of last year to exclude athletes from Russia and Belarus”.

“The organising committee supports the position of the Ukrainian authorities opposing the admission of Russians and Belarusians to sports competitions, at least until the end of the bloody war caused by Russia,” added the statement.

Yesterday, the POC itself issued a statement expressing “surprise and indignation” at the IOC’s recommendation that Russian and Belarusian athletes be allowed to return to international competition.

“Considering the fact that the situation on the war front in Ukraine has not changed, and Russian bombs continue to fall on Ukrainian cities, including sports facilities, we find the IOC’s proposal appalling,” announced the POC.

The IOC’s recommendation was also condemned by Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, who called it “a scandal and a betrayal of the true spirit of sport”. He pledged that Poland “will do our best to keep the sport free from Russian influence”.

Today, deputy foreign minister Marcin Przydacz told Polskie Radio that Poland would “try to use diplomatic channels to change the [IOC’s] decision”.

Asked if Poland would boycott the Olympics were Russian athletes allowed to compete, Przydacz said that “such a decision should be worked out in a broader coalition of states, and only then, if such a broad front could be taken, can one talk about hard decisions and hard recommendations”.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, Poland has been one of Kyiv’s closest allies, providing humanitarian, military and diplomatic support, including calling for tougher international sanctions against Moscow.

Main image credit: Zalasem1/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 4.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.