Jacek Wszoła: What sport? The IOC is a corporation like FIFA or UEFA, a state within a state
Photo: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Jacek Wszoła is agitated. He does not leave a dry thread on the recommendation issued by the International Olympic Committee that Russians and Belarusians should be allowed to compete in sports. – From the people there I would like to hear that they do not want this war. If they don’t, we can safely tell them to go where the Ukrainian defender of the Snake Island ordered the Russian military corps to go,’ he says.
He is, unfortunately, an expert on the Olympics and their boycotts.
In 1976, he was less than 20 years old when he entered the stadium in Montreal. And a plan to win this Olympic final, to return to Poland with gold. He carried out the plan, you know, moving on to a career of great proportions, including setting a world record – at the level of 2.35 m – inclusive.
Four years after Montreal, he competed in Moscow, in the Olympics boycotted by the Western world, and he did not go to the next one, hosted by Los Angeles, because it was boycotted by the Eastern Bloc. Such times, such realities.
Now, four decades later, he listens to the president of the IOC and doesn’t believe what he hears.
Rafał Kazimierczak: Let’s say you’re 19 again and in top shape. Would you compete in the same competition with Russians and Belarusians?
Jacek Wszola: I think not, after all, Russians have long been banned from great athletics events, and soon the same will probably happen to Belarusians.
Are you talking about doping? Russia system, supported by the state. And I’m asking if you would run with them in this wartime reality after they attacked Ukraine.
No, I can’t imagine it. Let’s look at it from the perspective of the Ukrainians – what would Julija Levchenko and Jarosława Mahuchich do if they met Marija Lasickine on the hill, i.e., if she was not promoted, the captain of the Russian army. And Kateryna Tabashnyk? She went through hell during this war.
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