Iga Swiatek opened up about the IOC's thoughts to allow Russian athletes to compete globally and the impact on tennis amid ongoing tensions.
As the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has recently considered allowing Russian athletes back into global sports events, citing human rights as the main reason, Iga Swiatek shared her thoughts on the matter. While acknowledging the importance of human rights, Swiatek expressed her concerns over the continuing war and its effects on the sports world.
"Well, honestly, you know, human rights are important, but I always feel like there are values that you have to kind of like treat respectfully, and war is not something that we want in the world. I was pretty open about that since the beginning."
The Polish tennis sensation highlighted the complicated and confusing nature of the current situation, with Russian and Belarusian players being allowed to compete in some sports but not others. Swiatek pointed out that despite these changes, the situation in Ukraine remains dire.
"You know, right now the situation is pretty complicated, because at the beginning of the war there weren't many like decisions one way. Well, at first they were kind of banned in other sports, not in tennis."
"Then it changed a little bit, and they are starting to be allowed, the Russian and Belarusian players, which is pretty confusing, because I feel like nothing changed in Ukraine and the cities are still under attack and many Ukranian athletes are fighting in the war and actually like losing their lives."
Swiatek stressed the importance of sports as a unifying force that can bring people together rather than separate them. However, she acknowledged that given the current tensions, achieving this unity may be challenging.
"It's heartbreaking. I just hope, you know, no matter what the decisions is gonna be, the sport will be able to kind of put people together and not separate them. But, you know, there are tensions, so it may be tricky and hard to do, but, well, you know me as just one athlete, I don't have like full influence on what's going on, so we kind of have to, you know, just compete our best no matter what the circumstances are."
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