As the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris kicked off Friday, athletes from two countries, in particular, remain unable to compete under their respective country’s flags.
Russia and Belarus have been banned from competing in this year’s games due to the ongoing war in Ukraine. In fact, the Russian Federation has faced some sort of sanction since 2017 when doping allegations surfaced within their team. However, since 2023, the IOC implemented further restrictions on Russia over the War in Ukraine while Belarus more recently also found itself banned due to its support of Russia in the war.
This also meant that no international sports events would be organized in Russia or Belarus; no flag, anthems or other national symbols would be displayed at international sports events; and no government or state officials would be invited to sports events.
“The Olympic Games cannot prevent wars and conflicts,” the IOC said in 2023. “Nor can they address all the political and social challenges in our world. This is the realm of politics. But the Olympic Games can set an example for a world where everyone respects the same rules and one another.”
In 2023, nearly 20 months into its war with Ukraine, the IOC suspended Russia with immediate effect for violating the Olympic Charter by incorporating sports councils in four regions in eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, North Korea made its return to the Olympics after being unable to compete in the 2022 Beijing Winter Games due to the DPRK refusing to compete in the 2021 Tokyo Summer Games over COVID.
North Korea most recently participated in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, where it sent 22 athletes to compete. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed back what was scheduled to be the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to 2021. In April of that year, North Korea announced in would not participate in the 2021 Games due to concerns surrounding the virus.
It was the first Summer Olympics the country had missed since they boycotted the 1988 Games, which were held in Seoul. North Korea was the only country not to send athletes to Tokyo and was warned of the consequences of not participating. After rejecting solutions offered by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), including vaccines, the country was suspended from the IOC in September 2021.
The ban lasted through the end of 2022, meaning the North Korean delegation would miss out on the 2022 Beijing Winter Games. The decision determined that the North Korean Olympic committee would not receive any financial support during the ban and would forfeit any support that had been previously withheld due to sanctions.
As far as Russian and Belarussian athletes go, they may still compete as individuals under the AIN (Athlètes Individuels Neutres) banner but may not represent their respective countries. Furthermore, athletes from either Russia or Belarus had to have been invited to compete by the IOC and were then required to qualify under the existing systems. Because of these strict standards, only 15 individual athletes from Russia and 18 from Belarus were included in the games after just 60 were initially invited.
So given these stringent policies in place for Russia, Belarus, and in a sense North Korea, you’d think any respectable governing body with a firm grasp on the genocide currently happening in Gaza, these same restrictions would be extended to Israel, right?
I mean, according to researchers, an estimated 186,000+ people have been murdered in Gaza by Israeli bombs since October 7 of last year while the IDF has specifically targeted civilian populations within the strip. However, despite the calls to ban Israel for the State’s systematic murder of Palestinian men, women, and children, the IOC and French President Emmanuel Macron rejected demands to ban the Israeli team from competing.
“Israeli athletes are welcome in our country,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday.
“They must be able to compete under their colours because the Olympic movement has decided it,” he told France 2 television in an interview, adding that it was “France’s responsibility to provide them with security”.
Nobody should be arguing that Israeli athletes should be protected from violence while participating. However, Macron’s statement is a sick reminder of the hypocrisy of the West and the IOC. Especially in this sense when you also consider that within the 186,000+ murdered in Gaza, an estimated 400 Palestinian athletes have also been killed since early October of last year. Additionally, while the IOC and French government are doing everything they can to protect Israeli athletes in Paris, the World continues to look the other way when it comes to Palestinians, especially in Gaza who continue to be denied safe passage from Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaigns.
