The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has given the clearest indication yet that Russian and Belarusian athletes will participate in the Paris Olympics despite a coalition of international opposition.

Thomas Bach, the IOC president, warned that it would be “the end of international sport... and Olympic Games as we know it” if politicians decide who participates and emphasised what he called our “unifying mission of bringing people together”.

The so-called “unifying mission” was the clause under which the IOC said in January that it would explore a pathway by which Russian and Belarusian athletes could compete in Paris as “neutral athletes” provided that they had not outwardly supported the war in Ukraine.

Bach’s comments follow a conference call last Friday when 36 sports ministers listened to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky say that “terror and Olympismare two opposites” and urge governments to oppose the inclusion of athletes from Russia and Belarus in France next summer.

They were told that 228Ukrainian athletes and coaches had died since the Russian invasion last year and that a further 40,000 athletes have been forced out of the country.

The various sports ministers planned to issue a collective statement, although it emerged over the weekend that the IOC has been lobbying National Olympic Committees over concerns that the “Olympic movement position” must be reflected.

The Daily Telegraph in London