Zelenskyy Tells Summit ‘No Place’ for Russia at Olympics

Olga Fatkulina and Vadim Shipachyov, of the Russian Olympic Committee, carry a flag into the stadium during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics, on Feb. 4, 2022, in Beijing, where Russian athletes competed under the acronym ROC, for Russian Olympic Committee, for the third time. (AP)
Olga Fatkulina and Vadim Shipachyov, of the Russian Olympic Committee, carry a flag into the stadium during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics, on Feb. 4, 2022, in Beijing, where Russian athletes competed under the acronym ROC, for Russian Olympic Committee, for the third time. (AP)
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Zelenskyy Tells Summit ‘No Place’ for Russia at Olympics

Olga Fatkulina and Vadim Shipachyov, of the Russian Olympic Committee, carry a flag into the stadium during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics, on Feb. 4, 2022, in Beijing, where Russian athletes competed under the acronym ROC, for Russian Olympic Committee, for the third time. (AP)
Olga Fatkulina and Vadim Shipachyov, of the Russian Olympic Committee, carry a flag into the stadium during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics, on Feb. 4, 2022, in Beijing, where Russian athletes competed under the acronym ROC, for Russian Olympic Committee, for the third time. (AP)

Russian athletes have "no place" at next year's Paris Olympics while their country’s invasion of Ukraine continues, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a summit of sports officials from about 30 countries Friday.

The International Olympic Committee argues it would be discriminatory to exclude Russia and ally Belarus from sports ahead of the 2024 Paris Games. With qualifying in many sports already under way, the IOC wants athletes from those countries to compete in a neutral capacity without national symbols.

"While Russia kills and terrorizes, representatives of the terrorist state have no place at sports and Olympic competitions," Zelenskyy told the summit in an opening address by video link, according to a transcript issued by his office.

"And it cannot be covered up with some pretended neutrality or a white flag. Because Russia is now a country that stains everything with blood — even the white flag. It must be recognized. And this must be recognized, in particular, at the level of the International Olympic Committee," Zelenskyy said.

"The International Olympic Committee needs honesty. Honesty it has unfortunately lost. Honesty that will help stop Russian terror and bring peace closer."

Zelenskyy made surprise visits to Britain and France on Wednesday, pushing for fighter jets to battle Russian invaders in a dramatic speech to the British Parliament.

Friday's summit meeting, which was held online and chaired by British Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer, took place on a day of intense missile and drone strikes by Russian forces against Ukraine.

"President Zelenskyy told the UK in Parliament this week of the suffering still being felt by many Ukrainians. As he did so the IOC was continuing to ignore the international allies stepping up their efforts for peace and disregard how the Olympics will give (Russian President Vladimir) Putin the perfect platform to promote Russia and legitimize his illegal war," Frazer said in a statement Thursday.

Ukrainian Sports Minister Vadym Guttsait said allowing Russians to compete would further traumatize athletes affected by the war.

"The participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in international competitions will make it impossible for Ukrainian athletes to take part in them, because each of the Ukrainians suffered from Russian aggression in one way or another: They lost their relatives and friends, lost their homes, received psychological trauma, lost the opportunity to do what they love," Guttsait, who also leads the Ukrainian Olympic Committee, wrote in a letter to IOC president Thomas Bach and other Olympic leaders that was published Thursday.

Ukraine has previously made public a letter from Bach to Guttsait saying that "threatening a boycott ... goes against the fundamentals of the Olympic Movement and the principles we stand for."

Political leaders of Ukraine’s nearby allies in Poland and the Baltic states have said there could be Olympic boycotts if the IOC forges ahead with its plan. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has said Russian and Belarusian athletes should be barred from the Olympics in her city if the war is still going on by then.

Hidalgo traveled to Kyiv on Thursday to meet Mayor Vitali Klitschko and said she would "do everything" to convince the IOC. Russian athletes previously competed at the Olympics without national symbols as punishment for doping cases, and using a similar approach to deal with a war is not appropriate, Hidalgo argued.

The IOC, which last year backed excluding Russians and Belarusians from sporting events on safety grounds, also faces challenges from within its own movement. It has given the federations running individual Olympic sports the final say on the details of readmitting Russian and Belarusian athletes. The sports could impose different rules and move at different speeds, or challenge the IOC’s authority entirely.

The governing body of archery said last week that it was "very unlikely" to allow any neutral athletes to compete in 2023, including at Olympic qualifiers. The IOC’s plan for Russians and Belarusians to qualify for the Olympics through competitions in Asia, instead of Europe, was not acceptable either, it added. The governing body of track and field has its own restrictions on the Russian team because of doping and its president, Olympic great Sebastian Coe, has said his preferred solution would be for Russia to "get out of Ukraine."

Olympic qualifiers are under way in some sports and start soon in many more. That leaves federations to grapple with how to reshape a process that they thought was finalized years ago.

It could also be up to them to implement the IOC’s plan to leave out Russian and Belarusian athletes deemed to be "actively supporting the war in Ukraine." The IOC hasn’t defined what constitutes support, while Russian officials have called it discriminatory and demanded the Olympic body scrap that condition entirely.

Ukraine is particularly concerned that Russian athletes from military sports clubs or who hold military ranks could compete.

"In Russia, sport is an element of politics, powerful propaganda, in this case the promotion of war," Guttsait wrote to Bach.

Many of the national Olympic committees have taken the IOC’s line, but some like Ukraine and Latvia say they would rather boycott than compete against Russian athletes. Five sports bodies in the Nordic countries said Tuesday they wanted a ban on athletes and officials from Russia and Belarus.



Alcaraz Resists Rublev to Reach Wimbledon Quarter-finals

Spain's Carlos Alcaraz celebrates winning a game against Russia's Andrey Rublev during their men's singles fourth round tennis match on the seventh day of the 2025 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on July 6, 2025. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)
Spain's Carlos Alcaraz celebrates winning a game against Russia's Andrey Rublev during their men's singles fourth round tennis match on the seventh day of the 2025 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on July 6, 2025. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)
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Alcaraz Resists Rublev to Reach Wimbledon Quarter-finals

Spain's Carlos Alcaraz celebrates winning a game against Russia's Andrey Rublev during their men's singles fourth round tennis match on the seventh day of the 2025 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on July 6, 2025. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)
Spain's Carlos Alcaraz celebrates winning a game against Russia's Andrey Rublev during their men's singles fourth round tennis match on the seventh day of the 2025 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on July 6, 2025. (Photo by Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)

Carlos Alcaraz came through a ferocious fourth-round firefight against a red-hot Andrey Rublev to win 6-7(5) 6-3 6-4 6-4 on Centre Court and keep his bid for a third successive Wimbledon title on track on Sunday.

The Spanish second seed stuttered in his opening three rounds but found his best form to eventually subdue an inspired opponent who once again came up short against the very best, Reuters reported.

Rublev rocked Alcaraz by roaring into a 4-1 lead only to be pegged back but the Russian produced some astonishing tennis to snatch the tiebreak and move ahead.

Alcaraz never looked ruffled though and levelled the match after Rublev double-faulted on a break point. Rublev continued throwing everything in his arsenal at the champion in the third set but paid for not taking some early break points as Alcaraz found another gear.

Alcaraz looked impregnable in the fourth set and a single break of serve was enough to seal a 22nd successive match win and set up a last-eight clash with Britain's Cameron Norrie.

"Andrey is one of the most powerful players we have on Tour and is so aggressive with the ball. It's really difficult to face him, he forces you to the limit on each point," Alcaraz, bidding to become only the fourth man to win back-to-back French Open and Wimbledon titles multiple times, said on court.

"Really happy with the way I moved and played intelligent and smart tactically. A really good match all round."

With so many seeds having fallen early, this was the first match between top-20 players in the men's singles this year and it did not disappoint as the quality scaled rare heights.

Rublev, 27, has barely been outside of the top 10 since 2022 but has never got close to winning a Grand Slam, losing all 10 quarter-finals that he has contested.

The 14th seed must have sighed when he saw Alcaraz in his way in the fourth round, but he came out in positive fashion, off-loading rockets at the five-time Grand Slam champion.

With the roof closed after earlier thunderstorms the noise of the ball striking strings sounded like rifle shots.

Rublev hit harder, then harder still and at 5-5 in the opening set launched an outrageous backhand winner off a full-blooded Alcaraz forehand and then followed with a powerful forehand of his own to the baseline to move a set ahead.

He barely did anything wrong after that but Alcaraz, finally clicking into gear after three scratchy wins, showed why taking the title off him will be such a tough task.

The turning point came at 3-3 in the third set when Rublev, attempting to save a break point, sent Alcaraz sliding from side to side with a barrage of power only for the Spaniard to whip a forehand cross court winner, before cupping his ear to the crowd who rose as one to salute the moment of genius.

Rublev stuck manfully to his task but he was powerless to prevent an 11th loss from 11 matches against top-five opponents at a Grand Slam.