If the world were to adhere to the ideals of Olympism, fraternity and the cult of controlled forces, in a peaceful emulation to get faster, higher or stronger, to peace, it would have to be crowned with a laurel wreath, like the victors of the sporting competitions in ancient Greece. However, the planet in which we live, increasingly convulsed by petty aspirations and the unquenchable thirst for power, has overturned that pure message.
The Ancient Olympic Games had 293 editions, from 776 B.C. to 393 A.D., in an era marked by fratricidal wars between the city-states of the Hellenic universe. However, in the rules of those athletic events, a sacred truce was decreed throughout Greece.
Ekecheiria was called that period, which was first one month and then established in three, and prevented the carrying of weapons in the territory of Elis. At the same time, it forbade any obstacle to athletes or official missions, even a spectator, representing the cities, on their way to Olympia, where all versions of the Games were held at that time.
In the modern world, three convocations have been aborted by war conflicts. In 1916, World War I frustrated the sixth Olympic Games, and the second of these confrontations was the cause of the non-celebration of the twelfth and thirteenth.
Today Russia has again raised its disagreement with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over the future of its athletes, according to presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov. However, he assured that his country will continue contacts with that body, despite the statements of its president, Thomas Bach, who called on international sports federations not to participate in the 2024 Friendship Games.
Although the IOC recommended those federations not to allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in competitions, due to the hostilities in Ukraine, and banned those nations from organizing international competitions, last March it recommended international federations to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes who neither support the military operation in Ukraine nor are linked to the army or security forces, to participate in sports events under a neutral flag.
It is vital to shield the Olympic movement from double standards, because history is full of them. None of the European colonial powers, namely France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy, hungry for power and exponents of nationalism in the so-called Old Continent, the main causes of World War I, ever received a single IOC warning, much less a sanction.
Neither Germany nor Japan, for invading Poland and China, respectively, and thus unleashing the second world conflagration, were required by the IOC. The United States razed Iraq to the ground, made Afghanistan ungovernable, has tried to overthrow more than 30 governments of different countries, is suffocating Cuba with a genocidal blockade, and the IOC has not even warned it.
In the Donbas, in the border area between Russia and Ukraine, a beach full of children was razed to the ground, and Russia was sanctioned for defending itself against NATO's encircling intentions, with its neighbor as a spearhead.
There has been no pronouncement from the IOC on the Israeli massacre, which in five weeks has claimed 11,000 Palestinian lives. Will Israel be excluded from Paris-2024?
OFFICIAL VOICE OF THE COMMUNIST
PARTY OF CUBA CENTRAL COMMITTEE
