Ukraine’s sports minister on Friday renewed the country’s threat to boycott next summer’s Paris Olympics if Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to compete, and said his country would continue to marshal like-minded allies to add weight to a threat that represents a serious crisis for the Olympic movement.
The Ukrainian official, Vadym Guttsait, said that if Ukraine failed to persuade international sports officials to bar Russian athletes, the country would, in his opinion, have to “skip the Olympic Games.” Guttsait said Ukrainians “did not want to see or meet” Russian and Belarusian athletes in international sports competitions, including the Olympics, as long as the war persisted.