GENEVA — Facing a Russia-organized potential rival to the Olympics, the IOC urged sports activities and political leaders Tuesday not to participate within the Friendship Games on account of launch weeks after the Summer Games in Paris.

The International Olympic Committee denounced diplomatic strikes to advertise the inaugural occasion in September as “a cynical attempt by the Russian Federation” to carry politics into sports activities.

“The IOC strongly urges all stakeholders of the Olympic movement and all governments to reject any participation in, and support of, any initiative that intends to fully politicize international sport,” it stated in a press release revealed throughout a gathering of its government board chaired by IOC president Thomas Bach.

Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed final 12 months to start out organizing summer season and winter occasions underneath the banner of the Friendship Games, paying tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in prize cash.

The video games goal to counter the nation’s rising isolation in worldwide sports activities — and rising tensions with the IOC and Bach — for the reason that army invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

At the United Nations in New York 4 months in the past, Russian diplomat Maria Zabolotskaya used a debate on an Olympic truce for Paris to ask the world to the Friendship Games, citing her nation’s help for “honest and fair competitions.”

The first video games are scheduled in Moscow and Yekaterinburg in September, with a prize fund reported by Russia media totaling 4.6 billion rubles ($50 million).

The Friendship Games goal to launch inside weeks of the Aug. 11 closing ceremony on the Paris Olympics, the place the IOC doesn’t pay prize cash for medalists.

Russia is excluded from all group sports activities on the Olympics and particular person athletes should go two layers of vetting — by their sport’s governing physique and the IOC — to get impartial standing to compete with out their nationwide symbols of flag, anthem and uniforms in purple, white and blue.

Sports officers have stated in non-public conversations the contingent of Russian athletes competing as neutrals in Paris might vary from about 25 to 50.

One reported objective of the Friendship Games has been to create worldwide competitions for Russian athletes and groups whose careers have stalled in the course of the warfare in Ukraine.

It is unclear which international locations have dedicated to sending groups to Russia in September and if sports activities officers are concerned within the course of.

The IOC warned Tuesday of athletes outdoors “being forced by their governments into participating … thereby being exploited as part of a political propaganda campaign.”