MOSCOW, Mar 12 International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons believes that no one can experience joyful feelings from the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes from the Paralympic Games — 2022. On March 2, against the backdrop of events in Ukraine, the IPC Executive Committee allowed the teams of Russia and Belarus to participate in the Beijing Paralympics in a neutral status. However, the next day, the governing body of the IPC changed its decision to not allow Russians and Belarusians to the Games, explaining this by the threat of a boycott by a number of teams. «No one can be satisfied with such an outcome,» Reuters quoted Parsons as saying. this is a negative outcome but members of the paralympic movement asked us to take action we needed to change our minds we don't like it when politics interferes with sport but there is a limit to everything and we need to listen to our members we don't want governments to influence our decisions, but it was impossible to separate sports from the rest of the world in connection with what was happening. Probably, in the presence of Russian and Belarusian athletes, the results would have been different, but from the point of view of the atmosphere, this decision was the right one. The situation was becoming unstable.»
