Australian diplomats to boycott Paralympics Opening Ceremony
Australia will join a growing diplomatic boycott of the opening ceremony of the Winter Paralympics in Milan-Cortina on Friday night, refusing to send government representatives to protest the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes.
Government sources have confirmed Australia will not send officials to the ceremony and will side with like-minded countries such as England and Canada as tensions mount over Russia’s return to the global sporting stage. The government has not yet made an official statement.
However, athletes had to make their own decisions about whether to participate in the ceremony, which symbolized the return of Russian and Belarusian flags to the sports scene for the first time since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Six athletes from Russia and four from Belarus were allowed to compete at the Games by the International Paralympic Committee. This will be the first time athletes will compete under the Russian flag at the Paralympic Games since the 2014 Games in Sochi.
The move comes as Ukrainian community leaders in Australia increase pressure on sports officials to take a tougher stance. The Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organizations this week issued an appeal urging its supporters to petition the Australian Paralympics to boycott the opening ceremony and openly oppose the participation of the two countries.
An Australian Paralympic Games spokesperson confirmed that the national team will continue to participate in the ceremony and traditional international parade, although not all athletes will take part.
“Australia will be represented at the opening ceremony, but our team’s participation will be reduced due to performance,” the spokesperson said.
Some athletes will skip the ceremony because they will be competing the next day.
Many European countries and the British government also announced that they would boycott the opening ceremony in protest. The International Paralympic Committee said the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine would not send athletes or officials to the ceremony on Friday night.
The International Paralympic Committee estimates that fewer than 60 percent of competing countries will send a full delegation to the ceremony at the Arena di Verona.
IPC president Andrew Parsons this week defended the decision to allow Russian athletes to compete under their own flag for the first time since 2014 after Russia and Belarus were banned from the 2022 Paralympics following the invasion of Ukraine.
“Our focus is to continue to support all stakeholders as they arrive and prepare to deliver the best Paralympic Winter Games,” Parsons said.
“We are collaborating with Milan Cortina and ensuring that this event continues to serve as a platform to promote social change for the world’s 1.3 billion disabled people.”
Parsons said the IPC general assembly decision last September reflected the votes of member organizations.
“I accept that this decision was not well received in some parts of the world,” he said.
“But I want to emphasize that the IPC is a democratic, global organization whose decisions on suspensions are determined by its members.”
If a Russian Paralympic athlete wins a gold medal, it would be the first time in four years that the Russian anthem will be played at a major global sporting event.
The diplomatic protest echoes previous disagreements over the use of sports boycotts as a foreign policy tool. China accused Australia of “taking a political stand” after Canberra joined the US and New Zealand in a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics and refused to send officials or diplomats to protest the communist government’s human rights record.
In particular, Australia did not participate in the mass Western boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games; This decision sparked intense debate at the time about the role of sports in geopolitical conflicts.
The Winter Paralympics are broadcast on Nine Network, 9Now and Stan Sport.
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Rob Harris is a national correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in Canberra. He is a former European correspondent.Connect via email.
