Olympics-IOC open to expression guidelines review but athletes endorse current rules

By Karolos Grohmann

MILAN, Feb 13 (Reuters) – The International Olympic Committee would be open to reviewing guidelines governing the rights of athletes to freely express themselves at the Winter Games but the rules have been embraced by competitors, IOC President Kirsty Coventry said on Friday.

The case of Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych, who was disqualified from the Milano Cortina Olympics on Thursday over a helmet depicting athletes killed since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, has brought Games rules on freedom of expression sharply back into focus.

He has since appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, demanding his reinstatement in the Olympics.

Coventry, who was elected to the top IOC post last year, had led a review of the guidelines governing expression in the Games as head of the athletes’ commission back in 2021.

“This (any new review of guidelines) would fall within the working group looking at all fundamental principles of Olympism,” Coventry told a press conference on Friday.

“I have had a number of conversations with athletes over the last couple of days. They still feel strongly that we should be able to keep part of our Olympic movement, and their Olympic experience, safe.”

Under current rules, athletes can raise issues of interest or concern to them at any of the Games press conferences, mixed zones, team meetings, interviews or on social media.

But they cannot do it on the field of play or the medal ceremonies, with the IOC saying it wants to keep the fields of play free from any distraction.

Rule 50.2 of the Olympic Charter states that ‘no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.’

With the rapid rise of social media and a tense political environment in the United States ahead of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, there have been concerns these rules could be tested further at the Games in two years’ time. 

“If our athletes would like us to look at it (the rules), we are open to everything,” Coventry said. “But the rules are the rules as of today, and I believe they are good rules.

“They keep our athletes safe from being used. The athletes believe the guidelines are relevant in today’s world.”

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Ken Ferris)