“This is a man who brought the Russian flag at the opening of the Paralympic Games in Rio showing solidarity with those who had been barred from the Rio Paralympics in a mean and inhuman way”, Zakharova told reporters.
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In a statement, the IPC said: “The IPC will be speaking to NPC Belarusto remind them political protests are forbidden at the Paralympic Games”.
An unauthorised member of the Belarus delegation who at Wednesday’s Paralympic Games opening ceremony unfurled a Russian flag to show solidarity with the banned nation has been stripped of his accreditation. It has cancelled Andrei Fomochkin’s accreditation after identifying him as the individual who carried the flag into the parade of athletes and discovering that he was a guest of Oleg Chepel, the president of the Belarus National Paralympic Committee.
“If they continue to break the rules, we will look at some other form of action”, Spence said.
Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko also expressed his approval of Fomochkin’s act.
Also, the Belarusian team pledged to wave the Russian flag at the opening ceremony to demonstrate their support for the Russian banned athletes.
It is understood that the controversy has not gone down well with certain figures in the Belarus team.
“A hero has appeared today amongst us”, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Interfax news agency.
The IPC concluded, however, that it was a political protest because of previous Belarusian complaints about the decision to ban Russian Federation from the Paralympics amid allegations of a widespread, government-sponsored doping scandal. “That flag was pretty well hidden on the person last night because all of the Belarus team was searched before they went out, and the flag was somewhere on the person we didn’t notice”.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin promised to organise additional competitions for the banned athletes.
