The IOC has too much power.

There are a number of elected officials in Paris, including that city’s mayor Anne Hidalgo, who want no part of a possible pathway to allow Russian and Belarussian athletes to compete in the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics and Paralympics. The reason? They do not support Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war with Ukraine. But the International Olympic Committee, not the French President Emmanuel Macron, will have the final say as to whether the Russians and Belarussians can compete in the IOC’s crown jewel event. The IOC acts as if it is a nation and it does have special status at the United Nations as some sort of political entity when it is clearly not a nation. But the IOC is allowed to behave that way as politicians seemingly fold at the sight of the Olympic rings. Macron agreed that a final decision on Russian and Belarusian athletes competing at Paris 2024 should be made by the International Olympic Committee after a meeting with the IOC President Thomas Bach. The Russian invasion of Ukraine took place during the February 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics which was a violation of some IOC rule that you can’t start a war during an Olympics.

Hidalgo does not want Russian athletes, coaches and other officials in her city. Hidalgo told France Info, “as long as Russia continues to wage war on Ukraine, I don’t want there to be a Russian delegation at the Paris 2024 Games. I would find that indecent. It is not possible to parade as if nothing had happened, to have a delegation come to Paris, while the bombs continue to rain down on Ukraine.” The IOC claimed a boycott will violate the Olympic Charter and that its inclusion of Russia and Belarus is based on a UN resolution against discrimination within the Olympic movement. The IOC has more clout than a nation’s leader.

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