KYIV: Ukraine barred its national sports teams from competing in Olympic, non-Olympic and Paralympic events which include competitors from Russia and Belarus, the sports ministry said in a decree on Friday.
Ukraine’s deputy sports minister, who signed off on the move, told Reuters in an interview that it was a “bad decision” but one that was better than the alternative.
The decree, criticized by some Ukrainian athletes, comes after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) angered Kyiv by paving the way for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We are aware that...
this is a bad decision, but in this case there are no good decisions. We are forced to choose between several bad decisions,” the minister, Matvii Bidnyi, said. “We call on other (countries) to also...