Olympic head slams criticism of planned Russian reintegration as 'deplorable'

Criticism by European governments of the push to reintegrate Russian and Belarusian athletes into world sports before the 2024 Paris Games was called "deplorable" by the International Olympic Committee leader on Thursday.

IOC president Thomas Bach also suggested those governments — which seemed to include his own home country Germany — had "double standards" for focusing on athletes from countries involved in just one of about 70 wars and armed conflicts ongoing in the world.

Bach detailed IOC advice on Tuesday to individual Olympic sports bodies of conditions by which they could decide to approve individual Russian or Belarusians to compete as neutral athletes, while continuing a ban from team sports.

The IOC said sports should exclude athletes who have military links, though Bach clarified on Thursday this likely should not apply to those who did one year of mandatory service.

Germany sports minister Nancy Faeser said the IOC's shift from its position one year ago to exclude all athletes and teams from Russia and Belarus as "a slap in the face of Ukrainian athletes."

"Those who let the warmonger Russia use international competitions for its propaganda are damaging the Olympic idea of peace and international understanding," Faeser said, echoing comments from other Ukrainian allies including Poland.

Bach responded it was deplorable that some governments "do not want to respect the majority within the Olympic movement and of all the stakeholders nor the autonomy of sport which they are praising and requesting from other countries."

"It's deplorable that these governments don't address the question of double standards with which we have been confronted," the German lawyer said.

Criticism of sports officials was only