{"id":819752,"date":"2026-03-11T23:27:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/819752\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T23:27:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:27:19","slug":"ukraine-accuses-ipc-and-local-organizers-of-systematic-pressure-at-milan-cortina-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/819752\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine accuses IPC and local organizers of systematic pressure at Milan Cortina Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

CORTINA D\u2019AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) \u2014 Ukraine\u2019s Paralympic committee has accused the International Paralympic Committee and Milan Cortina<\/a> organizers of subjecting Ukraine\u2019s athletes and coaches to \u201csystematic pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

It released a statement Wednesday with a series of alleged incidents in which it said representatives of the IPC and the local organizing committee pressured and disrespected the Ukrainians.<\/p>\n

The incidents included the alleged forceful removal of a Ukrainian flag, the breaking up of planning meetings by the Ukrainian team, and the prohibition of a Ukrainian athlete from wearing a earring with the words \u201cStop War\u201d in a podium ceremony.<\/p>\n

The IPC said it was caught by surprise by the Ukrainian statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re surprised by it because we\u2019ve received no feedback from them through chef de mission meetings, which are held each morning,\u201d Craig Spence, the IPC\u2019s chief brand and communications officer, said at the media briefing on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to that, we have not received any information from them through the formal or informal lines that exist in the Village,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of Milano Cortina staff there and a lot of IPC staff, but the only time we became aware of this was through the media.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian National Paralympic Committee said it wanted to avoid a radical reaction, and hoped that the incidents were \u201crandom in nature and not biased\u201d toward the Ukrainian team, but it said recent events showed that they were \u201csystematic\u201d and \u201cshameful.\u201d<\/p>\n

It said its athletes and coaches had never experienced such negative manifestations before.<\/p>\n

Spence said the Ukrainian athlete was kept from wearing the \u201cStop War\u201d earring on the podium because of Games\u2019 regulations, and said flags must be put on proper places.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look around the venues, it\u2019s pretty obvious that flags are allowed in so we want to just try to determine why these particular flags were not allowed on this particular day, which the Ukrainians raised through the media today,\u201d Spence said.<\/p>\n

Ukraine was one of the countries that boycotted the opening ceremony of the Milan Cortina Games because of the IPC decision to give Russian athletes wildcard entries and allow them to compete under their own flag for the first time in more than a decade at the Paralympics.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Winter Paralympics: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/paralympic-games<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORTINA D\u2019AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) \u2014 Ukraine\u2019s Paralympic committee has accused the International Paralympic Committee and Milan Cortina organizers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7654],"tags":[206664,58132,236080,2000,299,79,657,236079],"class_list":["post-819752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ukraine","tag-2026-milan-cortina-olympic-games","tag-2026-winter-olympics","tag-craig-spence","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-sports","tag-ukraine","tag-winter-paralympic-games"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116213137217791681","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}