IOC confirms some Russian athletes can compete at 2024 Paris Olympics as neutrals
A select group of neutral Russian athletes will be permitted to compete at the 2024 Paris Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced Friday.
The move officially opposes the requests of athletes and officials from Ukraine, who repeatedly called for Russia and Belarus to be excluded with a blanket ban due to the invasion that began in February 2022.
Russia is still barred from team sports on the global stage, and it won't be easy for individual athletes to get approved for exemption.
The decision to grant Russian and Belarusian athletes neutral status will fall to the governing body of each Olympic sport. Those organizations will be tasked with determining whether an athlete has actively supported the war or committed allegiance to any military or state security agencies. There will be exemptions in track and field, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said Friday.
“Only a very limited number of athletes will qualify through the existing qualification systems,” the IOC said in a statement.
Once granted neutrality, Russian athletes will compete under a firm set of guidelines to maintain the status. The games will not permit any indicators of national identity, including flag, anthem and colors. The International Gymnastics Federation, for example, has mandated light blue uniforms.
The IOC's path toward the inclusion of Russian athletes began to take shape at the beginning of this year. As the committee urged sports governing bodies to examine ways to let individual athletes compete, it was met with appeals from Ukrainian figures, including president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and boxer Oleksandr Usyk.
"The medals that Russian athletes are going to win are medals of blood, deaths and tears," Usyk told IOC president Thomas Bach in a message on Instagram in February.
In Russia, the IOC's approach was praised by Igor Levitin, an aide to President Vladimir Putin and senior vice president of the Russian Olympic Committee.
“I think it is already a success. Olympic society understands that the Olympic Games cannot be staged without Russia," he said.
While Russia sent a team of 335 athletes to the Tokyo Olympics held in 2021 — they competed under the moniker "Russian Olympic Committee" due to the doping scandal that rocked the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi — the turnout will be much smaller in Paris. Of the 4,600 athletes who have qualified for the upcoming Summer Games to date, only eight are from Russia and three are from Belarus, the IOC said Friday.
