Łukašenka considers sports ministry reshuffle over athletes’ poor performance

December 15, BPN. Sanctions against Belarusian athletes have not had a positive effect on their performance, Alaksandr Łukašenka told senior sports officials at the December 15 meeting.

“If people [athletes] see that they are unfairly punished, they make an effort to show even better results,” the Telegram channel Pul Pervogo quoted him as saying. “Are they making an effort? They don’t.”

Sports that receive more attention from authorities show even worse results, he added, blaming athletes for failing to win dozens of Olympic medals. “We used to have them [medals] when there were no sports facilities [in the country] at all,” he noted.

Łukašenka has also announced an upcoming staff reshuffle at the Ministry of Sports and Tourism in early 2023.

Belarus had a record medal haul at 17 Olympic at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. At the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, the Belarusian team earned only seven.

On February 28, four days after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army, the International Olympic Committee recommended that athletes and officials from Belarus and Russia should be excluded from international competitions.

The recommendation was implemented immediately and on a mass scale. Later, some federations made it clear that only the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine would enable Belarusian and Russian athletes to compete in international events.