The International Fencing Federation, known by its French
acronym FIE, voted this month to allow fencers from Russia and its ally Belarus
to return to international competitions as qualifying for next year's Olympics
in Paris ramps up. They are set to compete as neutral athletes without national
symbols like an anthem or flag.
"The FIE is not fulfilling its duty of care for
athletes, especially for Ukrainians. Your insufficient leadership in completely
banning Russia and Belarus is being called out by athletes and civil society
across the globe," said the open letter signed by the fencers, organized
by two advocacy groups, Athleten Deutschland and Global Athlete.
"You have chosen Russian and Belarusian interests over
the rights of athletes, notably Ukrainian athletes, and by doing so, you are
failing to support the very people your organizations are meant to
support."
The letter was published on the same day that the board of
the IOC — whose president Thomas Bach was a gold medalist in fencing at the
1976 Montreal Olympics — was meeting to discuss setting new recommendations for
sports bodies 16 months before the opening of the Paris Games.
The IOC recommended excluding Russian and Belarusian
athletes on security grounds last year following Russia's invasion but has
recently sought to create a pathway for them to return to competition.
Bach opened a board meeting with a defense of letting
Russian and Belarusian athletes compete in international sport, saying that it
"works."
"We see this almost every day in a number of
sports," Bach told media allowed to film his opening speech at IOC
headquarters in Lausanne.
Bach first cited cycling and tennis, though there was
tension among fans in the stands at the Australian Open, and women players from
Ukraine have regularly refused to shake hands or be photographed with opponents
from Russia and Belarus.
Fencers are the latest group to show support for Ukrainian
athletes, who are almost universally opposed to the IOC's push for letting
Russians return, while track and field's World Athletics governing body last
week extended its exclusion while the war continues.
The group who signed the open letter include Lee Kiefer of
the U.S., the Olympic gold medalist in women's foil, French men's team foil
gold medalist Erwann Le Péchoux and four-time Olympic medalist from Ukraine,
Olga Kharlan.
Billionaire Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov has been the
FIE president since 2008, though he suspended himself from his duties on March
1, 2022, days after the invasion, after he was placed under European Union
sanctions.
The FIE's decision has already affected its competitions
after the organizers of an upcoming event in Germany on the showpiece Grand
Prix circuit refused to stage it.
The event in May in the town of Tauberbischofsheim, where
Bach grew up, would have been one of the first fencing competitions to include Russian
and Belarusian athletes since the invasion.
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