FR​ / UA​ / DE

Let’s ensure the Paris 2024 Games remain the celebration of sport and freedom, with the participation of Ukrainian athletes.

Let’s ensure the Paris 2024 Games do not become the Games of shame, let's not allow Putin to use them as a springboard for his war propaganda !

On the cover: Nikita Nagorny, on the left as triple medal-winning gymnast at the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games, on the right as Chief of Staff of the military-patriotic youth organisation Yunarmia.

To the President of the French Republic and the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) :

Just four days after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the IOC clearly recommended the total exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes from all international competitions. But it now refuses to take a similarly clear stand on their participation in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games themselves. We thus need to take action and do all we can to prevent such participation!

Because we, citizens of the world, we, lovers of Olympism and lovers of Paris, want to make the next Games a true celebration of sport, welcoming to all athletes who fight for Liberty, in particular Ukrainian athletes.

Because we want to make Paris a city of peace, where Russian Olympic athletes are not allowed in, as the vast majority of them support an invading army which is torturing, murdering, raping and destroying Ukraine, and deporting tens of thousands of its children:

• Our published research shows that more than 80% of the Russian medallists at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 are military or police officers, and/or have taken part in demonstrations backing the invasion of Ukraine ;
• The Russian army has destroyed hundreds of Ukrainian sports facilities and killed hundreds of Ukrainian athletes, either in action or in strikes against civilian targets;
• Russia has committed serious and repeated breaches of Olympic principles, from the unprecedented scandal of large-scale doping of its athletes circa 2010 to multiple violations of Olympic truces by its army;
• Sport weighs inordinately in Putin's regime, which places his sport mates in key positions, politicizes every athlete to legitimize his wars in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and Ukraine, and goes so far as to enlist Russian children from the age of 8 in a "Youth Army" headed by a multi-Olympic medal-winning gymnast, Nikita Nagornyy.

Like several countries such as Poland, the United Kingdom, the Baltic and the Nordic states, as well as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and several international sports federations (such as World Aquatics or World Athletics), we do not accept to welcome the military athletes and propagandists of Putin's regime in a city which is a symbol of freedom, and is linked to the rebirth of Olympic values in the modern era.

On the contrary, we want Paris to be able to welcome in peace and fraternity all athletes fighting for our democratic values, whether they come from Ukraine or elsewhere.

Let's not make the Paris Olympics the perfect opportunity for Putin to promote his repressive, war-mongering regime at home and around the world, through Olympic victories.

By signing this petition, let's all say YES to Ukrainian athletes competing in the Paris Olympics, and NO to Putin's army of athletes descending on Paris!

For further information, please consult our full argument on our website.

#Paris2024 #ParisOlympicsWithoutPutin #JOsansPoutine