On October 6, 2023, the Russian TV anchor Olesya Loseva published on her Telegram channel screenshots of articles about the President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, from several French outlets: SUD OUEST, L’Essor Isère, and France Bleu. According to Loseva, Bach was asked at the press conference how much the spread of bedbugs in France would affect the Olympic Games planned in Paris, to which he replied that if the situation does not change, “rapid itching will become an Olympic sport.”
In one of the screenshots, we also see the Netflix logo and a photo with the caption OLYMPICS HAS FALLEN, which creates the impression of a cover for a movie or a TV show.
The same information was also published by Russian-language Facebook accounts, Telegram accounts, and websites (1;2;3).
False information is being disseminated about Thomas Bach’s statement regarding the Paris Olympics and the Netflix documentary series. In fact, Thomas Bach did not make such a statement, and the screenshots of the French outlets are fabricated.
Of the shared screenshots, the one attributed to France Bleu contains the most information. According to the screenshot, Bach made this statement at a press conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. At the beginning of October, an international forum of athletes was held in Switzerland. None of the videos published on the YouTube channel (1;2) prove that Thomas Bach made such a statement. In addition, the article corresponding to the screenshot cannot be found on the website of the French outlet.
On the same screenshot, we can see the photo and the inscription on it – “Olympics has fallen”.
The same inscription can be found on a fabricated screenshot of another French media, SUD OUEST (similar material is not found on the website of this media outlet either). A QR code is attached to the photo, which directs the user to the Telegram channel “OLYMPICS HAS FALLEN“.
In the description of the Telegram channel, we read that they are publishing the hidden truth about the International Olympic Committee and Thomas Bach in the form of a documentary series on Netflix. According to the videos, actor Tom Cruise tells the audience about corruption. In fact, the film on Netflix with the above title and starring Tom Cruise was not released by the Olympic Committee.
On the third screenshot distributed in the name of L’Essor Isère, we read that Thomas Bach made an insulting statement towards the French and joked inappropriately. An article with similar content is not found on the website of the mentioned media outlet either.
It is worth noting that “Myth Detector” has already verified false information about the 2024 Paris Olympics attributed to foreign publications.
About the Source
Facebook user Inessa Filatova regularly publishes anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian content. Some of the posts published by the user have been flagged as false information by foreign fact-checking agencies.
Prepared by Nona Tsirgiladze
Myth Detector Lab
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