This Friday, the International Olympic Committee authorized the participation in the Paris Olympic Games of Russian and Belarusian athletes under a neutral flag, excluding team events, and as long as they have not actively supported the war in Ukraine.
Only 11 “neutral individual athletes” are currently classified for the competition – eight Russians and three Belarusians -, according to the IOC in a statement, compared to about 60 Ukrainians.
The issue is crucial since the fear of seeing a Ukrainian delegation absent or very small in Paris has been a cause of concern for the Olympic body, and would have made, from a political point of view, the presence of Russian athletes even more delicate, even without anthem or flag.
After having excluded Russians and Belarusians from world sport at the end of February 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the IOC thought twice to organize their return, explaining on multiple occasions that the athletes should not “pay” for the acts of their government.
Last March, the Olympic body recommended to the international federations that they reinstate the Russians and Belarusians under a neutral flag in their competitions, moving to “an appropriate time” their decision on the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, and the winter ones. 2026 in Milan-Cortina.
The Olympic body took time to evaluate the development of the competitions, and took into account the evolution of the position of the Ukrainian government, which initially required its athletes to boycott any event involving Russians, before softening its position last summer ( Boreal).
Although the international federations followed that recommendation in a scattered order, since athletics in particular continues to reject the integration of Russians, the 12th Olympic summit organized on Tuesday in Lausanne started with a clear signal to the world of sport.
The representatives of the international federations, the 206 national Olympic committees and the athletes demanded a “quick” decision to allow the presence in Paris of the small number of Russian and Belarusian athletes who pass the qualification phases.
In a balancing act between taking into account the Ukrainian conflict and the political autonomy of sport, the IOC ended up reintegrating athletes from the two countries, but maintaining sanctions against their governments.
Since February 2022, the body thus prohibits any international event on Russian or Belarusian soil, any presence of their anthems, flags and officials during the competitions and no representative of the two States will be “invited or accredited for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.” “.
On October 12, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee, deprived of Olympic funding, for having placed five sports organizations from occupied Ukrainian regions under its authority.
Finally, the Olympic body recalls, “at least 3,000 Ukrainian athletes and other members of the Ukrainian Olympic community” benefited from IOC solidarity funds to be able to train over the last twelve months. As of today, “the Ukrainian delegation is expected to be more or less the same size as at the Tokyo 2020 Games,” the Lausanne-based body specified.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister has described the IOC’s decision as “shameful” and urged its partners to condemn it. Such a decision “undermines the Olympic principles,” Dmitro Kuleba said this Friday on the social network X. “The Kremlin will use all Russian and Belarusian athletes as a weapon in its propaganda war,” he predicted.
For his part, the Russian Minister of Sports, Oleg Matitsin, described this Friday the conditions of the International Olympic Committee as “discriminatory”. “We do not deny that participation in the Olympic Games is the dream of every athlete, but the conditions offered to us are absolutely discriminatory and go against the basic principles of Olympism,” said Matitsin, quoted by the Match TV channel.
According to Russia, the international federations and the IOC “are damaging the image of the Olympic Games themselves.” But, at the same time, Matitsin has indicated that those Russian athletes who “have achieved success in competitions and the right to participate (in the Olympic Games) will possibly do so.”