MOSCOW, August 13 – News. The head of the Federation Council Commission for the Protection of State Sovereignty of the Russian Federation, Andrei Klimov, said that he would not like a representative of one of the NATO countries to head the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
On Saturday, at the 142nd session of the IOC in Paris, the organization's president, Thomas Bach, announced that he would not seek re-election for a third term. The German has headed the IOC since 2013. The IOC presidential elections will be held in March 2025.
«I really wouldn't want a citizen of a NATO country to head the IOC. Believe me, there are still many countries in the world, and you can find a person who is not a member of NATO. By the way, Monaco is not a member of NATO,» the politician said during a briefing at the MIA «Russia Today» media group.
State Duma deputy and Olympic speed skating champion Svetlana Zhurova, answering a question about possible candidates for the post of IOC head, mentioned Prince Albert II of Monaco among others.
Klimov also noted that the Olympic Games in Paris were «a triumph of NATO's long-standing Russophobic policy in world sports.» According to him, the anti-Russian movement in the sports environment was started by Western opponents of Russia «not yesterday» and long before the Russian special operation.
«The sports results of the Olympics were once again supported by facts about the harmfulness of monopolizing big-time sports under the auspices of the IOC, as well as the preservation of neocolonial characteristics of modern world high-performance sports,» Klimov believes. The senator believes that Russia needs to reconsider its strategy with regard to big-time sports.