Olympics-International Olympic Committee Says It Was Victim Of Russian Prank Calls

BERLIN: International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach was a sufferer of Russian prank calls, the IOC stated on Thursday, as relations between the Olympic physique and Russia rapidly deteriorate following a Paris Olympics parade ban for his or her athletes over the warfare in Ukraine.

The IOC stated there had been faux calls made to the Olympic physique and its president, with the callers presenting themselves as representatives of the African Union Commission and wanting to debate the state of affairs with Russia.

“There appears to have been a new incident in the Russian disinformation and defamation campaign against the International Olympic Committee and its President,” the IOC stated in a press release.

“Fake calls purporting to be from the African Union Commission appear to have been made by the very same group that has already attacked a number of global political leaders and other high-ranking personalities in the same way.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in September had spoken of worldwide fatigue with the battle in Ukraine in a telephone name with Russian pranksters, who’ve duped different Western politicians and celebrities in an effort to elicit frank, unguarded remarks.

“During the calls, a person pretending to be the Chair of the African Union Commission wanted to have arguments in particular from the IOC against the politicisation of sport by the Russian government, in order to prepare a statement against such politicisation,” the IOC stated.

It didn’t present particulars of the conversations or say what number of calls had been made.

On Tuesday, the IOC introduced a ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes from the Paris Games opening ceremony parade, as a result of warfare in Ukraine.

That prompted a pointy response from Moscow, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying on Wednesday the IOC’s resolution was “the destruction of the idea of Olympism” and an infringement on the athletes’ pursuits.

Relations between Russia, which hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and the IOC have turned bitter in latest months.

Russians and Belarusians will compete as impartial athletes in Paris, with out their flags and anthems, and the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee in October for recognising regional Olympic councils for Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine — Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Russia, whose Sochi Olympics with a price ticket of greater than $51 billion had been the most costly summer time or winter Games on the time, is planning to organise its personal multi-national Friendship Games in September, additional angering the IOC.

(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is printed from a syndicated information company feed – Reuters)