By Lisa Riley Roche

SALT LAKE CITY — The escalating controversy over a proposal to allow Russian athletes to compete in the 2024 Summer Games in Paris despite the ongoing war in Ukraine may spill over onto future Olympics, especially if some nations decide to boycott.

That could affect the next Summer Games, in Los Angeles in 2028, as well as Salt Lake City's chances of hosting another Winter Games, said University of Utah political science professor Matthew Burbank, the author of two books about the Olympics.

"This absolutely has clear knock-on effects. I mean, this is going to affect much more than even the upcoming Games in Paris," Burbank said of the International Olympic Committee's statement last week about the possible participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes.

There are parallels with the U.S.-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow, over the then-Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, he said. Four years later, the Soviet Union and its supporters did the same, staying away from the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles.

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"That's exactly the kind of thing that you would anticipate continuing to happen," Burbank said, given there appears to be no way to resolve the controversy without angering either Russia or Ukraine, and possibly their allies.

Reaction has 'gotten nasty'

The IOC insists there's support for those athletes to return to competition under "strict conditions" that would include not identifying their home countries and not having actively backed Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

But both Russia and Ukraine are lashing out against the proposal, a reversal of the IOC's call shortly after the start of the war nearly a year ago that the athletes be barred from any international competition.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the conditions "obviously unacceptable," and said "such unsightly attempts to squeeze our country out of international sports are doomed to failure," according to a translation of a report by TASS.

Ukrainian leaders have condemned the proposal in harsh terms, with a presidential advisor claiming the IOC would be providing "a platform to promote genocide," while sports officials in Ukraine are threatening an Olympic boycott.

https://www.ksl.com/article/50571125/will-next-olympics-in-the-us-be-affected-by-the-controversy-over-russian-athlete-status