BUDAPEST: The International Olympic Committee should start work on ending Russia’s suspension from the organisation “the minute” Moscow obeys the rules again, IOC vice-president Juan Antonio Samaranch Junior said on Tuesday.

The 64-year-old Spaniard, whose father of the same name was IOC president from 1980-2001 and transformed it into a commercial powerhouse, is one of the seven candidates vying to succeed current IOC leader Thomas Bach.

The Russian Olympic Committee (NOC) is “today still in clear and flagrant breach of the Olympic Charter by taking over responsibilities of a fellow national Olympic committee in certain territories,” Samaranch told AFP in Budapest on the sidelines of a conference.

The IOC had excluded the NOC after it had placed several sports organisations from occupied Ukrainian regions under its authority. “The minute the reasons for suspension and non-recognition disappear, we have the obligation to start working very hard to bring them back,” said Samaranch. He stressed that Russia had not been suspended for invading Ukraine, but “because it had not respected the Olympic truce” by starting the war in 2022, just as the Beijing Olympics ended and before the Paralympic Games.

“We didn’t take sides... The minute we take sides, you are excluding the other side, a part of the world,” Samaranch said. He promised to fight for the Olympic movement’s “independence and universality” without which the IOC “would not serve” its purpose to “unite despite differences, despite controversies, despite fights, despite war”.

Russia was banned from world sport following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A tiny squad of 15 neutral athletes represented Russia for the Paris Olympics this summer. Commenting on the fast-paced AI development, Samaranch expressed the hope that it can help “reduce the gap” between rich and poorer countries and that IOC must “make the most of technological evolution”.

On the “complex” question on the participation of transgender athletes, he pleaded for a “level playing field”. “We can’t afford to discourage girls, future women champions,” he said, noting a “conflict between two basic human rights” and that transgender athletes “deserve” to be recognised.

Bach, who has held the post since 2013, announced his intention to step down after the Paris Olympics. The candidates vying to succeed Bach will present their programme next January to the IOC members in a meeting at Lausanne.

The election to become the most powerful figure in sports governance will take place in March with the winner scheduled to take office in June. — AFP