Olympic medalist Erik Lesser says blame IOC, not athletes, over Winter Games being in China

Berlin – Germany’s Erik Lesser, a three-time Olympic medalist, said it was the International Olympic Committee — and not the athletes — who should face criticism over Beijing being given the right to host the winter Olympics despite China’s human rights record.

Lesser, who won team and individual silver in biathlon at the 2014 Sochi Games as well as team bronze at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games, said athletes had been left in the cold by the IOC.

“We are now standing here having to justify ourselves for the Olympic Games (being held) in a country where human rights are violated,” he told the Muenchner Merkur newspaper. “So in turn we have to be more critical about what Thomas Bach as president of the IOC did not achieve,”

Rights groups have criticized the IOC for awarding the Games to China for a second time, after human rights conditions did not improve following the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, according to the groups.

The IOC has said human rights will be protected for all Games participants as part of the host contract, but it has said it does not have the power or mandate to change laws or interfere with a sovereign state.

Lesser said that did not prevent athletes facing criticism that should instead be directed at the IOC.

“Us athletes are always asked about that before the Games,” said Lesser, who is part of Germany’s biathlon team for Beijing. “We have to consider the fact that we have to take a position on issues that the IOC should have cleared up years ago.”

The Beijing Games have been marred in controversy over the past year, and the United States and other governments have announced a diplomatic boycott of the event for what it says are rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang region.

China denies wrongdoing in Xinjiang and says camps for Uyghurs provide vocational training and curb religious extremism.