Czech President Zeman on the diplomatic boycott of the Olympics: nothing bad will happen
Photo: Zhang Tao / XinHua / Global Look Press
Czech President Milos Zeman has criticized a number of countries for their diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Olympic Games in China. This is reported by TASS with reference to the president's video message to the members of the Czech national team.
Zeman noted that he fundamentally opposes the abuse of the idea of the Olympics for political purposes. He stressed that this had already happened in the past during the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. According to Zeman, now we can observe a weak form of such abuse, when the boycott is announced at the level of politicians, not athletes. “Honestly, if some political functionaries are not at the Olympics, nothing bad will happen,” the president added.
Earlier it was reported that Denmark and the Netherlands joined the diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics. The United States was the first to announce a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Games. After the boycott was supported by Australia, Great Britain, Canada and Japan.
The Beijing Olympics will be held from 4 to 20 February. Russia will compete at the Games in a neutral status due to the sanctions of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
