The President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, made a statement concerning the decisions of the IOC on the admission of Russian athletes to participate in the Games in Pyeongchang-2018. In recent days, the IOC has refused to participate in the tournament a number of leading Russian athletes. According to Mr. Bach, the actions of the IOC are not aimed at "humiliating Russia", but pursue the goal of giving chances to "a new, pure generation of Russian athletes."

On Wednesday, IOC President Thomas Bach first commented on the situation with the admission of Russian athletes to participate in the Winter Games-2018 in Korean Pyeongchang. Recall that this week, the IOC, which previously banned the Russian national team from participating in the Olympics under its own flag (this was a consequence of the investigation of the Russian doping file), denied the right to speak at the tournament to a number of top athletes from Russia who had never been suspected of involvement in an anti-doping rule violation . Among them, the hero of the Sochi 2014 Olympics, Victor An, who won three golds in the short track competition, the leaders of the biathlon and ski teams - Anton Shipulin and Sergei Ustyugov, figure skaters Xenia Stolbova and Ivan Bukin, hockey players Valery Nichushkin, Sergei Plotnikov, Anton Belov, Alexey Bereglazov, Mikhail Naumenkov.

As Thomas Bach noted, the IOC should not seek to humiliate Russia. According to him, the decision to ban the Russian team from acting under its own flag was dictated by the desire to observe the balance: to punish the perpetrators and give the world a clear signal that doping in sport is unacceptable. Mr. Bach also noted that the decision that the Russians could still compete in Pyeongchang under a neutral flag was dictated by the desire to provide the new generation of pure athletes with the ambassadors of the renewed Russian sport.

At the same time, Thomas Bach actually admitted that from now on to punish the athlete does not necessarily prove his guilt in violation of the rules. According to him, the commission that decides to admit the athlete to the Games, enough suspicion, based on information from certain sources, that the athlete could be involved in something suspicious. "The commission under the leadership of Valerie Fournonon (the head of the commission for the admission of Russians to the Games." Kommersant ") collected from all sources the entire doping history of the athletes," Mr. Bach said. "Thus, the results of the commission's work can be considered reliable. We do not have the slightest doubt about this. " We add that the commission of Mrs. Fournonon never explained the reasons for taking a decision with regard to the Russian athlete.