Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks at a meeting with Minister of Sport Pavel Kolobkov, Moscow, April 27, 2018

Mr Kolobkov, friends,

We are pleased to have another meeting dedicated to cooperation in the international arena on sports movements and matters, which, unfortunately, overflow from the sphere of sport into the sphere of politics, which, in theory, should not be the case, but, unfortunately, we have what we have.

Along with the Ministry of Sport and other related departments, as well as the International Olympic Committee and our Olympic Committee, we are doing our best to identify the main areas for depoliticising sport. Athletes should have every opportunity to fulfill their potential. As an athlete, you, like no one else, know how important this is for the athletes who dedicate their entire lives to high-performance sports. However, when unscrupulous politicians interfere with this life-defining idea, it undermines the Olympic principles.

I very much hope that today we will go over the state of our interaction and outline additional steps to help our clean athletes to stand up for what’s right. We already have a lot of facts, which prove in many respects the artificial nature of the campaign staged around the “doping scandal.” We will defend the truth and the legitimate rights of our clean athletes.

Thank you again for your cooperation.

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We take the right approaches, and we do not deny issues that may arise. President Vladimir Putin mentioned it, too. However, these issues cannot be overemphasised or used as a barrier to undermine the prestige of Russian sport.

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I absolutely agree with your idea that athletes are of paramount importance when it comes to our efforts to promote the noble Olympic ideals. The international sports movement in all its manifestations should be guided precisely by the interests of athletes, not bureaucratic games, considerations of political competition, geopolitical ploys, or attempts to isolate or punish.

Another, perhaps not so significant, but still important aspect of the matter appeared more recently, when properly licensed athletes are unable to get visas due to time constraints in order to participate in international competitions. This also happened a couple of times with our colleagues from the United States. I think that the international federations that organise the corresponding competitions must make it a requirement that the host country must ensure entry for all participants of a competition and make it a criteria when choosing a host country for international or European championships.

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We closely cooperate with the Ministry of Sport of Russia to ensure entry for athletes and fans. Our consular missions abroad have been properly instructed.

The problem of sports officials failing to follow court rulings in the event of disputes between legal entities also requires our attention. If someone is trying to force us to declare all our athletes “asthma patients,” then it is a dirty game and will not happen.

Our goal and responsibility is to make sure that everything is fair and that the best win, rather than those who are good at driving unfair bargains.