Chairman of the Czech Olympic Committee (ČOV) Jiří Kejval at the plenary session on June 29, 2021 in Prague.
Prague – The representatives of the Czech Olympic Committee (ČOV) have decided to create an expert group whose aim will be to prepare legal documents for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which will prevent Russian and Belarusian athletes from participating in the Olympic Games in Paris 2024. Their representatives should be in the group also the initiators of the petition calling for the same step, Martin Ondráček and Dalibor Dědek, who are behind the initiative Gift for Putin. The WWTP informed about this in a press release.
Advertisement'; }
“We want to have a solid legal basis for enforcing what we consider to be right. That's why we started putting together a group composed of lawyers and experts in diplomacy, whose members will prepare material that will find support in, for example, the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Olympic Charter, ” said the chairman of the WWTP, Jiří Kejval, after today's meeting with the initiators of the petition. “We believe that a diplomatic solution to things is better. We believe that our constructive attitude will be welcomed by the IOC,” Kejval said.
The Gift for Putin initiative has written an online petition asking the WWTP to by all means allow the participation of the Russians and prevented the Belarusians from qualifying for the Olympics last week. At the same time, its authors request that the Czech Republic boycott the Olympics if they are to compete in the Games. To date, over 18,000 people have signed the petition.
“We have agreed on one thing. We will do everything to prevent the participation of Russia and Belarus in Paris. We respect the path that the Czech Olympic Committee wants to take, ” said Martin Ondráček.
The representatives of the WWTP again emphasized today that they are against the participation of Russia and Belarus in the Olympics in Paris and agree with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Sports Agency in their position. The IOC has recently been considering the return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to competitions in which they are not allowed to participate due to the war in Ukraine.
