Russia decides not to broadcast the Olympics for the first time in 40 years

In a move not seen since the Cold War, Russia has decided not to broadcast this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris, Russian news outlet Sports.ru reported on Saturday.

Calling the move not to broadcast the two-and-a-half-week Summer Games on either state TV or streaming services a “political decision”, Sports.ru cited an anonymous source as saying that, in the current climate, it was “impossible to show the Olympics without the [Russian] flag and anthem.”

The International Olympic Committee banned Russia from competition on 24 February 2022, following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, though at the time it was still serving a two-year suspension from all international sporting competitions issued after its massive state-sponsored doping programme was revealed in 2019.

Only 15 Russian athletes have chosen to participate in the 2024 Summer Olympics, set to take place from 26 July until 11 August in Paris, under a neutral flag.

The last time Russian broadcasters chose not to broadcast the Olympic Games was in 1984, when the USSR boycotted the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles over what it called “anti-Soviet hysteria being whipped up in the United States”, but what was, in fact, thinly veiled revenge for a US-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics over the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

On Saturday, 51 Nobel laureates, including former Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief Dmitry Muratov and Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich, penned an open letter to religious leaders and various international bodies calling for a ceasefire to be observed in the 55 armed conflicts currently going on in the world for the duration of the Summer Olympics Games in Paris.

Lamenting that “instead of sustaining life, resources are wasted on spreading death”, the letter warned that the war in Ukraine was expected to have claimed over 1 million lives by the end of the year.

“We are not state representatives, but if the efforts of states to establish peace are insufficient, we must take action,” the laureates wrote in a letter addressed to Pope Francis, St. Bartholomew of Constantinople, the 14th Dalai Lama, the warring sides, the UN, the European Parliament, and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.