“I was very surprised by the IPC’s decision,” Andreas Maurer, member of the left party, told Sputnik. “I immediately appealed to the party and the regional working group on sovereign politics regarding disabled people with the question of how we should react to this.”
Maurer admits that the whole party supports this campaign.
“These athletes as any other athletes have been preparing their entire life to take part in the 2016 Games. And now, people with disabilities are punished for something that they have nothing to do with. For them, even participation is of great importance. We strongly condemn that geopolitics are held on the sports ground,” announced Maurer.
“There is no place for politics in sport,” Maurer told Sputnik. “We want to show that some German people actually care about the situation. There is an ongoing debate on this topic. This was one of our intentions – to destroy ignorance.”
But it is not the first time a political dispute has crossed over into the world of sports.
“Remember the 1980 boycott of the Olympic Games or the Sochi Games dispute, when mass media presented Russia as the number one enemy. Same thing — politics came into sport even then,” said Martin Dolzer, member of the left-wing faction of the regional parliament of the mountains.
According to Martin Dolzer, political motives, hidden behind the suspension of Russian athletes, cannot become evident. Pressure is being pumped indirectly. But the chosen political strategy of the exclusion of an entire country is not the right way.
The IPC has banned the Russian Paralympic team from the 2016 Games in Rio. According to officials, the Russian Paralympic Committee “broke” the anti-doping code.
