{"id":109666,"date":"2026-02-23T04:59:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T08:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/sin-categoria\/ukraine-boycotts-2026-paralympics-over-russian-presence-protest-and-controversy\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T04:59:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T08:59:18","slug":"ukraine-boycotts-2026-paralympics-over-russian-presence-protest-and-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/nationals\/ukraine-boycotts-2026-paralympics-over-russian-presence-protest-and-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine boycotts 2026 Paralympics over Russian presence: Protest and controversy."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Ukraine Boycotts Opening Ceremony of Winter Paralympics<\/h2>\n\n\nKyiv has announced that its athletes will not participate in the opening ceremony of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympics, scheduled for March 6. The decision is a clear protest against the readmission of Russian and Belarusian athletes under their own flags.\n\nThe Ukrainian Paralympic Committee issued an official statement explaining that the absence of the Ukrainian delegation from the opening ceremony is a demonstration of their rejection of the participation of athletes from Russia and Belarus.\n\nDays before this announcement, Kyiv had already communicated that its representatives would not be present at the ceremony either, underlining the seriousness of its position.\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n\n<p>Athletes from Russia and Belarus &#8220;did not pass the qualification process to obtain licenses&#8221; to compete in the Paralympic event, calling the organizers&#8217; decision &#8220;shameful.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n<cite>Ukrainian Paralympic Committee<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\nFollowing the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the organizing committees of the Olympic and Paralympic Games had banned the participation of both countries under their own flags, allowing only the presence of athletes as neutrals. Ukraine had already expressed its disagreement with that formula, and now expresses its outrage at the full reinstatement.\n\nUkrainian sports authorities argue that this decision contradicts the Olympic values of promoting peace, by allowing the participation of nations involved in the war conflict. Belarus is considered a close ally of Russia in the war.\n\nThis incident adds to the recent tensions between Kyiv and the International Olympic Committee.\n\nThe controversy adds a new chapter to the debate over the participation of Russia and Belarus in international sports competitions since the beginning of the conflict.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ukraine Boycotts Opening Ceremony of Winter Paralympics Kyiv has announced that its athletes will not participate in the opening ceremony of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympics, scheduled for March 6. The decision is a clear protest against the readmission of Russian and Belarusian athletes under their own flags. The Ukrainian Paralympic Committee issued an official [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":109667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[997],"tags":[11956,4200,1076,171],"class_list":{"0":"post-109666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nationals","8":"tag-paralympic-games","9":"tag-protest","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-ukraine"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}