LThe Russian Judo Federation has announced that it will not send any judoka to the 2024 Paris Olympics, due to the quota of Russian judokas allowed to compete.
“Of the 17 judokas who obtained an Olympic qualification, the IOC only authorized four to participate,” regretted the Russian federation in a press release published this Friday. She thus denounces “humiliating conditions” and believes that “such actions by the IOC undermine the credibility of the Olympic movement” and “destroy the status of the Olympic Games as the most important sporting event” in the world.
The consequence of “political intrigues”
The IOC, which initially banned Russian and Belarusian athletes, agreed to participation under a neutral banner. That is, if they could prove their lack of support for the war in Ukraine and connection to their country’s military, which many athletes could not.
READ ALSO Olympic Games 2024: “In kyiv, we train every day under Russian missiles”
“We hoped until the end that common sense and the desire to organize a full-fledged Olympic Games with the participation of the strongest athletes, including those from Russia and Belarus, would prevail over political intrigues,” the federation notes bitterly.
“Weakened” judo competitions
“Without Russian athletes, the judo competitions at the Games will be incomplete and the champions will not be satisfied with their victory in a “weakened” Olympic tournament,” the federation also states. This is the case in Teddy Riner’s heavyweight category (+100 kg) where the table will open up due to the absence of world number two, Inal Tasoev.READ ALSO Olympic Games: can France be in the top 5 in the medal rankings?
Faced with what it calls an “unsportsmanlike decision”, the Russian Judo Federation believes that it is “urgent to reform the IOC” so that the Games once again become “a reference in terms of fair competition, purity of sport, independence from political influence”.
