Every day there is a new episode in the political-sporting soap opera of relations between the IOC and Russia. The latest, broadcast Thursday March 21, was not the most anticipated. It even takes a good place among the most surprising. The Olympic body announced in a brief press release that it had been the target, along with its president Thomas Bach, of a “ disinformation and defamation campaign. » It would be orchestrated by Russia. The press release explains that false calls claiming to come from the African Union Commission were allegedly made by the same group which has already attacked, in the same way, several world political leaders and other personalities of high rank. According to the IOC, a person claiming to be the president of the African Union Commission wanted to obtain arguments via these calls, particularly from the Olympic body, against the politicization of sport by the Russian government, in order to prepare a statement denouncing this politicization. A campaign of the same nature had already been denounced by the IOC last November.
