Ukrainian athletes demand a ban on Russian participation in the 2025 World Games

The Ukrainian sports community called on the International World Games Association (IWGA) to ban athletes from Russia and Belarus from participating in the competition, UNN reports with reference to the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Youth and Sports.

Details

According to the committee, representatives of the sports community expressed concern about the IWGA's decision to allow neutral athletes with Russian and Belarusian passports to participate in the 2025 World Games.

To date, 32 athletes from Russia and Belarus have been preliminarily qualified in 7 sports.

The pro-Russian lobby is gradually starting to return its athletes to international competitions - especially in federations where there are Russian representatives. Their athletes are now starting to delete all information from social networks so that it is not visible who they support. But we know that these athletes support their propagandists and aggressors 

Oksana Anastasia, Director of the Department of Sports of the Highest Achievements of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, called for help in finding evidence on these athletes.

There is almost no evidence base about the support of their criminal regime by Russian athletes who are going to the World Games. We have a request to everyone to help find evidence on these athletes so that we can contact the IWGA about their involvement in the criminal regime and violation of the IOC principles for admission to competitions 

Additionally

Dmytro Zolotukhin, an expert on information warfare and competitive intelligence, expressed the opinion that it is enough to deprive at least some Russian athletes, against whom there are "flagrant facts of support for the war", of participation in the competition.

Let's choose the most egregious facts of support for the war by Russian athletes. Even if one such athlete is removed from the competition, it will already be a good result. Ukrainian state bodies and organizations do not have the resources to physically process information about such a large number of athletes 

Reference

The World Games (IWGA) are international multi-sport competitions held every four years and include sports not represented at the Olympic Games.

Let us remind you

In January, Ukrainian sports leaders appealed to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) to maintain sanctions against Russian and Belarusian athletes.

In March, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted a resolution calling for a ban on the participation of athletes from Russia and Belarus in international competitions.