From an AP story by John Leicester headlined “Olympic president invokes John Lennon’s memory as Paris marks 1-year countdown to war-clouded games”:

The president of the International Olympic Committee on Wednesday formally invited the world’s nations but not Russia or its military ally Belarus to gather in one year in Paris for the Olympics — launching the final countdown to the 2024 Games against the backdrop of war in Ukraine.

IOC president Thomas Bach accompanied his invite with a plea for togetherness and invoked the memory of John Lennon as he argued that “our fragile world, with conflicts, divisions and wars rising,” needs the Olympics’ “unifying power more than ever.”