The IPC’s Andrew Parsons tries to ease growing tension as Ukrainian president calls the decision ‘dirty’
T
he Paralympic torch left its home in Stoke Mandeville this week and has arrived at the gateway of the Dolomites. The towns of Bolzano and Trento will host “flame festivals” over the weekend to welcome the Paralympic movement and commemorate its progress on the 50th anniversary of the first Winter Games. It will be a joyous, poignant start to what could be a fractious fortnight.
While the flame is being passed between torch bearers, the leaders of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) will be scrambling to contain what increasingly resembles a diplomatic incident. A decision last week to invite 10 Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete at the Winter Paralympics at Milano Cortina has been met with full-throated criticism from across Europe and beyond.
Ukraine led with a typically unsparing response from its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who called the IPC’s decision “dirty”, “not respectable” and “not European from the point of values”. His criticism has been echoed by other European politicians, including Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, who issued a statement on Tuesday calling for the IPC to reverse their action. The UK’s culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, has called it “completely the wrong decision”. The European commissioner for sport, Glenn Micallef, has said he will boycott the opening ceremony of the Games in protest.
