During a meeting with Russian athletes who won medals in that event, the president said that the banning of competitors from Russia and Belarus “not only directly violated the fundamental principles of sports, but basic human rights themselves were openly and cynically violated.”

He recalled that the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights does not take into account the political, legal or international status of the country the athlete represents, but the person himself. “Those rights were violated,” he stressed.

The head of State charged that the Russian athletes were discriminated against for political reasons, based on their citizenship and nationality. “Hard to imagine! This is not compatible with the principles of the Olympics. Under the guise of recommendations, real sanctions were imposed,” he emphasized.

In his opinion, it proves the increased commercialization of the Olympic Games and the dependence of the Olympic and Paralympic movement on sponsors, whose “money bags are very big”. He noted that such commercial submission “is the road to degradation, unfortunately.”

The Russian president explained that Moscow has denounced the use of double standards and the principle of collective responsibility in sport.

“Guided by the Olympic Charter, we reiterate that the Games are not competitions of countries, but of athletes, and we call for cleansing sport from a policy that systematically devalues all its values, that turns sports into a tool of manipulation,” Putin said.

jg/afl/mem/mml