Beijing Olympics: IOC chief Thomas Bach says warning against boycotts unrelated to 2022 Winter Games
- The IOC president says boycotts are a real danger but he was not referring to any specific country or individual during his IOC session keynote speech
- Bach says he is confident China will fulfil its commitments to human rights amid criticism of its treatment of Uygur Muslims
Olympic chief Thomas Bach on Saturday denied his warning against sporting boycotts was related to the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, adding he was confident China would uphold human rights amid criticism of its stance on Hong Kong and its treatment of Uygur Muslims.
Bach, who will seek a second term as International Olympic Committee president next year, said during an online IOC session late on Friday that boycotts of Games were a danger but they only hurt athletes and achieve little politically.
When pressed during a post-session press conference, Bach said he was not referring to threats related to the Beijing Winter Games.
“This was not related to Beijing or Beijing only,” Bach told reporters via video conferencing. “This was related to a number of experiences we had in recent months, in recent years. We had problems between different countries with visas, where athletes cannot travel to another country.
“We have seen these kinds of boycotts growing in the past two years, or one and a half years, and this was what I was relating to, not a specific country or a specific person.”
Will athletes protest or boycott the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics?
Two weeks ago, the US government announced sanctions on Chinese officials it says are responsible for human rights abuses in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
The Chinese government says its internment facilities in Xinjiang are for voluntary “vocational” education aimed at countering religious extremism.
Responding to a question on whether the IOC had confronted Beijing on the Uygur issue, Bach said: “We are in constant contact with Beijing 2022, like with all other organisations, and the human rights situation in China was already part of the evaluation procedure.
“Before the election [of the host city] we took the advice of experts and NGOs and we have guarantees thereof on the Chinese part and they are signatories of the host city that whatever is related to the Olympic Games, [they] will respect the human rights and this is our remit.
“And we are fully confident that China will deliver on this commitment with regard to the organisation of the Winter Olympic Games.”
Earlier in his keynote speech on Friday, Bach said history showed that boycotts only served to encourage more boycotts.
“Boycotts and discrimination because of political background or nationality are once again a real danger,” said Bach, who won a team fencing gold medal at the 1976 Montreal Games but was unable to defend the title because of the US-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games.
Athlete protest ban at odds with Olympic history
“A sporting boycott only punishes the athletes of the boycotting country and deprives their people of sharing in the success, pride and joy of their Olympic team.”
“The Soviet army stayed nine long more years in Afghanistan after the [1980] boycott. It appears that today, some just do not want to learn anything from history.
“The only political effect the boycott of 1980 had, was to trigger the revenge boycott of the following [Los Angeles] Olympic Games.”
