Ukrainian high jumper Mahuchikh insists Russians should be excluded from next year's Paris Olympics

Ukrainian high jumper Mahuchikh insists Russians should be excluded from next year’s Paris Olympics

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Ukraine high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh, speaks during a press conference ahead of the World Athletics Diamond League Athletissima athletics meeting, in Lausanne, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 28, 2023. The event takes place on Friday. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)

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International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach speaks at the opening of the extraordinary hybrid 140th IOC Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), at the Olympic House, in Lausanne, Switzerland, Thursday, June 22, 2023. (Laurent Gillieron/Keystone via AP)

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Australian high jumper Nicola Olyslagers, right and Ukraine high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh pose for a photo, during a press conference ahead of the World Athletics Diamond League Athletissima athletics meeting, in Lausanne, Switzerland, Wednesday, June 28, 2023. The event takes place on Friday. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)

By GRAHAM DUNBAR

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Ukrainian high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh has said since the start of the war that all Russian and Belarusian athletes should be excluded from international events, including the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Speaking on Wednesday a short distance from International Olympic Committee headquarters, Mahuchikh did not understand why opinions changed there after it had been pro-exclusion last year.

“Thomas Bach said at the start of the war he supported us and stayed in a strong position,” Mahuchikh, speaking about the IOC president, told The Associated Press ahead of this week’s Diamond League meet in Lausanne. “But now it’s not changed in the situation in Ukraine. Why did they change?”

The IOC gave different advice this year as qualifying events for the Paris Olympics approached, and Bach criticized Ukraine’s government last week for helping to block athletes from competing in events that now allow Russians to take part.

The IOC said Wednesday it invited all track and field athletes competing at the Athletissima meet to visit its headquarters on Thursday — the day Mahuchikh competes — and talk with Bach.

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Olympic sports bodies have been urged since March to allow neutral Russian athletes — those evaluated as not actively supporting the war, nor contracted to military or state security agencies — to compete in international events without their flag, anthem or national colors.

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Excluding them on the basis of their passports alone was discrimination, the IOC has said, while also adding that sports where Russians and Belarusians competed have not had security incidents. Tennis fans with Russian flags threatened security staff and were removed at the Australian Open in January.

Defending Russian athletes while citing human rights is unacceptable to Mahuchikh, the Olympic bronze medalist from the Tokyo Games behind Russian rival Mariya Lasitskene and Australian jumper Nicola Olyslagers.

“It is very difficult to compete with people who destroyed your country. Really every day the Russians do missile attacks to all territories of Ukraine,” said the 21-year-old native of Dnipro who now lives and trains in Belgium. “I don’t know what (more) we should do because we talk about and showed what they do. But, of course, we have people who support us and who understand the whole situation that happened.

“We are one year before the Olympics. We will do everything possible that the Russians and Belarusians are not allowed to go to the Paris Olympics.”

In her own sport, Mahuchikh and other Ukrainians need not worry about competing against Russians or Belarusians because World Athletics has taken the strongest exclusion stance of all Olympic sports.

“I’m very thankful to Sebastian Coe because he has a strong position about this,” Mahuchikh said of the World Athletics president and British track great, who won the first of back-to-back 1,500-meter gold medals at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

IOC officials have said the Olympic body could take a decision “at the appropriate time” to exclude all Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials from next year’s Paris Games.

Mahuchikh had a theory why the balance has shifted toward letting Russians compete.

“But we know that in the (International) Olympic Committee they have in the commissions Russian athletes and a lot of Russian people. And they have, of course, chosen this,” she said, without naming pole vault great Yelena Isinbayeva, who has been an IOC member elected by athletes since 2016.

Mahuchikh said she did not expect, and did not have time, to meet this week with IOC staff dedicated to working with athletes.

She and Olyslagers headline the women’s high jump on Thursday, which will take place as an early-evening standalone event in a downtown shopping area. The main Athletissima meet is scheduled for Friday at the storied Pontaise Stadium.

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Olympic Hightlights

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FILE - South Africa’s Jacques Freitag competes in the men’s high jump of the 2004 Olympic Games, in the Olympic Stadium in Athens, Friday Aug. 20, 2004. Local media is reporting that South African police have discovered the body of former high jump world champion Jacques Freitag after he went missing last month. The reports said the 42-year-old, who won the 2003 world title in Paris and competed at the 2004 Olympics, had been shot. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)

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FILE - Ilona Maher of USA is tackled by Sharni Williams of Australia in a semifinal of the Rugby World Cup 7’s championship held in Cape Town, South Africa, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022. The main task for Maher, the breakout social media star on TikTok at the Tokyo Olympics, is winning a medal in Paris. (AP Photo/Halden Krog, File)

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FILE - Jacques Freitag of South Africa waves his national flag after he won the Men’s high jump event at the World Athletics Championships, at the Stade de France in Saint Denis, north of Paris, Monday, Aug. 25, 2003. Local media is reporting that South African police have discovered the body of former high jump world champion Jacques Freitag after he went missing last month. The reports said the 42-year-old, who won the 2003 world title in Paris and competed at the 2004 Olympics, had been shot. (AP Photo/Thomas Kienzle, File)

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USA Water Polo Women’s Senior National Team attacker Ryann Neushul, left, trains at Long Beach City College Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024, in Long Beach, Calif. Following in the footsteps of two older sisters who won gold with the U.S. women’s water polo team, Ryann Neushul is making her Olympic debut in Paris this summer. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

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Iranian wrestler Iman Mahdavi, 28, practices at the Lotta Club Seggiano gym, in Pioltello , northern Italy, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

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FILE - Steven van de Velde of the Netherlands competes during the CEV Beach Volley Nations Cup Vienna 2022 men’s semifinal game against Austria at the Red Bull Beach Arena in Vienna, Austria, Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022. Van de Velde, convicted and imprisoned eight years ago for raping an underage girl in England has qualified for the Paris Olympics. (AP Photo/Florian Schroetter, File)