BERLIN (AP) — More than 300 fencers, together with 9 medalists from the final Olympics in Tokyo, signed an open letter revealed Tuesday urging the game’s governing physique and the International Olympic Committee to not permit Russian fencers to compete whereas the battle in Ukraine continues.

The International Fencing Federation, recognized by its French acronym FIE, voted this month to permit fencers from Russia and its ally Belarus to return to worldwide competitions as qualifying for subsequent 12 months’s Olympics in Paris ramps up. They are set to compete as impartial athletes with out nationwide symbols like an anthem or flag.

“The FIE is not fulfilling its duty of care for athletes, especially for Ukrainians. Your insufficient leadership in completely banning Russia and Belarus is being called out by athletes and civil society across the globe,” mentioned the open letter signed by the fencers, organized by two advocacy teams, Athleten Deutschland and Global Athlete.

“You have chosen Russian and Belarusian interests over the rights of athletes, notably Ukrainian athletes, and by doing so, you are failing to support the very people your organizations are meant to support.”

The letter was revealed on the identical day that the board of the IOC - whose president Thomas Bach was a gold medalist in fencing on the 1976 Montreal Olympics - was assembly to debate setting new suggestions for sports our bodies 16 months earlier than the opening of the Paris Games.

The IOC really useful excluding Russian and Belarusian athletes on safety grounds final 12 months following Russia’s invasion however has lately sought to create a pathway for them to return to competitors.

Bach opened a board assembly with a protection of letting Russian and Belarusian athletes compete in worldwide sport, saying that it “works.”

“We see this almost every day in a number of sports,” Bach informed media allowed to movie his opening speech at IOC headquarters in Lausanne.

Bach first cited biking and tennis, although there was rigidity amongst followers within the stands on the Australian Open, and ladies gamers from Ukraine have frequently refused to shake fingers or be photographed with opponents from Russia and Belarus.

Fencers are the newest group to point out help for Ukrainian athletes, who're nearly universally against the IOC‘s push for letting Russians return, while track and field’s World Athletics governing physique final week prolonged its exclusion whereas the battle continues.

The group who signed the open letter embrace Lee Kiefer of the U.S., the Olympic gold medalist in ladies’s foil, French males’s group foil gold medalist Erwann Le Péchoux and four-time Olympic medalist from Ukraine, Olga Kharlan.

Billionaire Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov has been the FIE president since 2008, although he suspended himself from his duties on March 1, 2022, days after the invasion, after he was positioned beneath European Union sanctions.

The FIE’s choice has already affected its competitions after the organizers of an upcoming occasion in Germany on the showpiece Grand Prix circuit refused to stage it.

The occasion in May within the city of Tauberbischofsheim, the place Bach grew up, would have been one of many first fencing competitions to incorporate Russian and Belarusian athletes for the reason that invasion.

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