Last week, the IOC said individual athletes from Russia and and its ally Belarus who had qualified for the Paris summer games would be allowed to compete without flags, emblems or anthems of their countries.

Mr Bach was speaking exclusively to the BBC at the UN Global Refugee Forum in Geneva on Wednesday.

Olympic sports federations had asked the IOC to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete but with no affiliation to their nations.

This was despite a number of countries - including the US and UK - calling for an all-out ban amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Ukraine itself suggested it might boycott the games, with President Volodomyr Zelensky saying Russian athletes "cannot be covered up with some pretended neutrality."

Mr Bach dismissed the threats of a boycott, saying countries that disagree "are allowed to have different political opinions".

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