Key Points
- Ukraine has threatened to boycott the 2024 Olympics if Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to compete.
- Ministers from 35 nations have discussed banning Russian and Belarusian athletes from the 2024 Olympics.
- Australia's sports minister says "respect for human rights and peaceful relations" form the foundation of the Games.
More countries are backing a push from Ukraine to ban Russia and Belarus from next year's Paris Olympics.
A meeting of 35 international ministers was held overnight where the campaign for the ban and boycott was discussed.
Ukraine and Lithuania said they are heartened by the support for the ban from the US and Germany following the meeting.
The move deepens the uncertainty over , cranking up the pressure on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) who are desperate to avoid what is arguably the worlds' biggest sporting event being torn asunder by the bloody conflict unfolding in Ukraine.
Australia's Sports Minister Anika Wells refuted reports - based on remarks from Lithuania's sports minister - that Australia backs the ban with the other 34 nations at the online meeting.
"We are going in the direction that we would not need a boycott because all countries are unanimous," Lithuanian Sports Minister Jurgita Siugzdiniene said on Friday, referring to the online meeting.
She told SBS News the Australian government condemns the illegal invasion of Ukraine, but on the Olympics takes the position of supporting a pathway for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under a neutral flag as "neutral athletes" - an .
"Respect for human rights and peaceful relations between nations form the foundation of international sport," she said in a statement on Saturday.
Ms Wells co-signed a follow-up letter in December 2022 alongside her counterparts in the United Kingdom, Canada, Iceland, Japan, South Korea, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, and the United States, to the President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach.
"The letter demonstrates our continued support for the principles outlined in the (early 2022 letter) of like-minded sports ministers," she said.
'Terror and Olympism are two opposites'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took part in the online meeting attended by 35 ministers to discuss the call for the ban, pointing out 228 Ukrainian athletes and coaches died as a result of the Russian aggression.
"If there's an Olympics sport with killings and missile strikes, you know which national team would take the first place," he told the ministers.
"Terror and Olympism are two opposites - they cannot be combined."
British sports minister Lucy Frazer said on Twitter that the meeting was very productive.
"I made the UK's position very clear: As long as Putin continues his barbaric war, Russia and Belarus must not be represented at the Olympics," she wrote.
, the Baltic states, Nordic countries and Poland had called on international sport to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing in the Olympics.
IOC President Bach cautions Ukraine over boycott threat
Ukraine has threatened to boycott the Games if Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to compete.
Such threats have revived memories of boycotts in the 1970s and 1980s during the Cold War era that still haunt the global Olympic body today, and it has called on Ukraine to drop them.
However, Polish sports minister Kamil Bortniczuk said a boycott was not on the table for now.
"It's not time to talk about a boycott yet," he told a news conference, saying there were other ways of putting pressure on the IOC that could be explored first.
Russian athletes competed at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games under the acronym ROC, which stands for Russian Olympic Committee. Source: AP / Jae C. Hong
In a letter to the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee, IOC President Thomas Bach, criticised Ukraine's campaign to join it in potentially boycotting the Games unless Russian and Belarusian athletes are banned from participating.
on 9 February - said the IOC condemns threats of a boycott, saying it "goes against the fundamentals of the Olympic Movement".
He cited advice from the UN Human Rights Council that banning athletes on the basis of their passport would be discrimination.
While Anne Hidalgo, the host city's mayor, has said Russian athletes should not take part, Paris 2024 organisers have said they will abide by the IOC's decision on the issue.
The Russian sports ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
