thomas barker the president of the international olympic committee gave his assurances the decision wasn't politically motivated the eye you see is politically absolutely neutral we would not allow her to be influenced by any kind of political considerations in. such a sporting matters just listening to the press conference and they fielded exactly that question and they said this isn't a political decision but of course the world knows that it's exactly that this has been a controversy that has been clouded in political judgment and it's impossible to separate this particular decision from what's going on in the rest of the world regarding fake news and the allegedly intervention of russia into britain's bragg's it vote and even the american presidential election so there is a lot of this kind of stuff swirling around the world at the moment a lot of it is beyond belief frankly about people are accepting some of it so i don't think you can disentangle the two things before the i.o.c. decision youngsters from hockey clubs across russia have showed their support for the nation's athletes by