– Boycotting is historically stupid and intellectually dishonest, Coe said of whether the Winter Olympics in China should be boycotted.

The athletics president called for dialogue and bridge-building, and believed the United States, Great Britain and other countries were wrong when they politically boycotted the championships.

China’s Foreign Ministry has warned countries that have launched a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing a few weeks ago.

– The use of the Olympic platform for political manipulation by the US, Australia, Britain and Canada is unpopular and isolationist, and they must pay for their mistakes, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin.

– Political boycotts, frankly, are pointless. I believe that discussion and connection in the world is important, and isolation rarely works, Coe said. Guard.

The Winter Olympics are being held from February 4 to 20 in Beijing. Several countries have said they will not send diplomats to the Games.

Several human rights organizations have accused China of detaining and committing genocide against the Uighur people, a Turkic people who mostly live in China. Major powers’ interference in democracy in Hong Kong and other human rights violations have also come under scrutiny.

Coe stressed that he did not support this.

– I don’t condone countries that don’t follow normal standards around human rights. I’ve never seen sport leave a country in a worse state than it was before. In many cases, the influence of sport can be huge, said Coe, who was one of the world’s leading athletes in the 1980s.

Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) will not hold the tournament on Chinese soil. The reason is the treatment of tennis star Peng Shuai, with many people expressing concern for his safety.

The International Association of Athletics Federations will hold two Diamond League events in China next season, doubling the number since the last time the athletic circus visited the country in 2019. The last two seasons, meetings in China were canceled due to the coronavirus.

Coe defended the choice to add more conventions in China.

– Each sport decides for itself, but that is not the path that World Athletics wants to take. In the long run, I don’t think it will achieve much. There are always unforeseen consequences. In the end, he believes, it is the athletes who suffer the most.

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