Long term readers might remember how excited I got about the prospect of Paris hosting the 2024 Olympics. After London hosted the games in 2012, it struck my sense of fairness that Paris should become the second city to host the world’s greatest sporting and cultural event for a third time. I also thought it would be fantastic to see what a show the French capital could put on, a full century after it last hosted the games. I was therefore rather looking forward to next year, and perhaps even visiting Paris in it’s Olympic year.

However, things might have just become a little complicated. According to this BBC report from two days ago “Up to 40 countries could boycott the next Olympic Games, making the whole event pointless, said Poland’s sport and tourism minister Kamil Bortniczuk.” Apparently, the fact that the IOC is allowing Russian athletes to participate could lead to a mass boycott, including from the likes of the UK and USA. The Olympic Committee say they want Russian athletes to compete under a neutral flag, but to many even that would not be acceptable. “On Thursday, sports ministers from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland said ‘any effort by the International Olympic Committee to bring back Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete, even under a neutral flag, should be rejected’.”

I must say I completely agree: what Russia is doing in it’s totally illegal invasion of Ukraine is disgraceful, and it deserves to be completely ostracised. But can you imagine the furore if something like this had happened in 2011, and London’s games were suddenly put in doubt? There we were, preparing to play host to the world, constructing huge stadiums and velodromes up in Stratford; what if we had suddenly been told that nobody was going to show up?

I’m probably experiencing a touch of schadenfreude here. I know how proud the french are of their capital. It is an extremely beautiful city, and they were looking forward to showing it off to the world enormously. For anyone interested in or concerned about the games, to be denied that opportunity at this late stage would be devastating. At the same time, we must show our opposition to what Russia is doing, and that includes excluding Russians from international events and competitions. The IOC, obviously worried that the games won’t go ahead next year, say that such a boycott would be contrary to the olympic charter; yet things like this are far more serious. Allowing Russians to participate under any flag would award them a legitimacy they currently do not deserve. Above all, the rest of the world must demonstrate its opposition to what Russia is doing, and if that means a mass boycott, meaning the games in Paris don’t go ahead next year, then that is what needs to happen.