Image – Government of Ukraine
February 3, 2023. OTTAWA, ON. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) calls on the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) to stand with Ukraine and oppose the participation in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games of athletes who are citizens of the Russian Federation or Belarus.
The UCC was appalled to learn that the vast majority of the leaders of the stakeholder groups of the Olympic Movement and the International Paralympic Committee favoured exploring a pathway to participation in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris for athletes from the Russian Federation and Belarus.
“Russia wages a genocidal war of aggression, commits systemic war crimes, rape, abduction of children, and other unspeakable crimes,” stated Alexandra Chyczij, National President of the UCC. “The participation of Russian athletes in the Olympics reflects neither Canada’s values nor the spirit in which international athletic competitions ought to be held.”
Today Chyczij wrote a letter to the Ms. Tricia Smith, President of the COC, and the Honourable Pascale St-Onge, Minister of Sport of Canada, urging Canada to “strongly oppose the IOC’s intention to allow Russian and Belarusian citizens to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympics.”
The letter can be read here: UCC Letter to Canadian Olympic Committee re Paris 2024
