Sports foundation to ask paralympic committee to whitelist individual Belarusian athletes

November 17, BPN. The Belarusian Sports Solidarity Foundation (BSSF) is planning to petition the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to allow individual, vocally anti-war athletes to participate in the Paralympic Games, the foundation’s manager Anatol Kotaŭ has told BPN.

The IPC voted to suspend the Russian and Belarusian paralympic committees on November 16.

Kotaŭ said this decision makes Belarus’ participation in the Paralympics impossible. However, there were precedents for individual athletes to be allowed to compete regardless of their nationality, he added.

Opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine and participating in the Paralympic Games is a “one-way ticket,” he said, but athletes “must make a choice.”