From May 1, the occupiers-controlled “media” began to disseminate statements by the illegal “President of the Sevastopol athletics federation” of the Soviet high jump athlete Igor Paklin that the occupied Crimea and Sevastopol cannot be part of the All-Russian Athletics Federation (“RusAF”) , so that the aggressor’s federation could “reinstate its World Athletics membership, which was terminated in 2015 following a doping scandal”.
However, it is worth clarifying that in March 2023, the World Athletics Council confirmed the decision it made in March 2022 to exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes, support personnel, officials of member federations and officials who are citizens of these two countries from participating in all World Athletics Series events for the foreseeable future.
The Council emphasized the lack of accreditation for the representatives of the aggressor to participate in any World Athletics Series events and the lack of participation of member federation personnel in any official World Athletics development or professional programs.
However, Paklin’s current propaganda-driven “lamentations” by the aggressor force us to return to the reservation made on March 23 by the World Athletics Council that the Council “agreed to establish a working group to advise and recommend to Council the conditions that would need to be met for the restrictions on Athletes and Officials from RusAF and the Belarus Athletic Federation participating at World Athletics Series Events to be lifted”.
Thus, the Council’s decision reflected the IOC’s manipulative narratives about allegedly neutral athletes” and now it is obvious that Russian “sports” functionaries are actively provocative “working” to “return” to World Athletics, for which they organize statements by defendants like Paklin.
At the same time, in fact, the aggressor still illegally uses “Crimean light athletes” at “All-Russian competitions”, but as allegedly “from the Krasnodar Territory”.
