Russian and Belarusian athletes officially authorized to participate under neutral banner by the IOC

This is undoubtedly the epilogue of a soap opera which began on February 24, 2022 with the attack of Russian forces on Ukraine. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced, Friday, December 8, in a statement that it authorizes Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate under a neutral banner in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (JO) – from July 26 to August 11 –, excluding team events and as long as they have not actively supported the Russian invasion.

To date, only eleven “neutral individual athletes” (eight Russians and three Belarusians) qualified for the Olympics, specifies the IOC, against around sixty Ukrainian athletes.

The question is crucial since the fear of seeing a Ukrainian delegation absent or very weakened in Paris has long worried the Olympic body, and would have made the presence of Russian athletes even more politically delicate, even without an anthem or flag.

The position of the Ukrainian government has evolved

After having banned Russians and Belarusians from world sport at the end of February 2022, in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the IOC therefore reasoned in two stages to organize their return, explaining on numerous occasions that the athletes should not ” pay “ for the actions of their government.

In March 2023, the Olympic organization first recommended that international federations reinstate Russians and Belarusians under neutral banners in their competitions, while rejecting “at an appropriate time” its final decision regarding the Paris Games.

The Olympic body took the time to evaluate the progress of the competitions, considered generally satisfactory, and to see the position of the Ukrainian government evolve, which first required its athletes to boycott any event involving Russians before soften its position on July 26 in a new decree.

Furthermore, if the international federations have followed this recommendation in a dispersed manner – athletics, in particular, the queen discipline of the Olympics, still refuses to reinstate the Russians – on the 12^e Olympic summit, organized Tuesday in Lausanne (Switzerland), resulted in a clear call from the sporting world to authorize the participation of Russians and Belarusians under neutral status.

Russia denounces “discriminatory conditions”

Representatives of international federations, the 206 national Olympic committees and athletes then demanded a decision ” fast ” of the IOC. This arrived three days later.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) had already authorized, on September 29, Russian and Belarusian para-athletes to participate, also under a neutral banner, in the Paralympic Games, which will be held in Paris from August 28 to September 8, 2024.

Following the IOC’s announcement, Russia denounced, on Friday, “discriminatory conditions” going “against sporting principles” And “ harming the Olympic Games themselves and not Russian sport”, in the words of his sports minister, Oleg Matytsin, quoted by the TASS news agency. However, he announced that Russian athletes having validated their qualification for Paris 2024 ” participate[aie]“probably” at the Olympics.

“An irresponsible decision”, according to Ukraine

In a press release, the Ukrainian Minister of Youth and Sports, Matvi Bidny, for his part, “strongly condemned the irresponsible decision of the IOC Executive Committee”. “Neutrality at a time when Europe is facing the bloodiest war since the Second World War and one nation is trying to destroy another is synonymous with irresponsibility and complicity with the assassins”affirms the new minister, appointed at the beginning of November, who met her French counterpart, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, this Friday in Paris.

“Russia is the only state that has violated the Olympic truce three times. Russia is the only state that organizes competitions competing with the Olympic Games. Russia is the only state that threatens to come to the Olympic Games with tanks. What more does Russia need to do, who else does it need to kill so that the IOC stops looking positively at this terrorist country? »asks Mr. Bidny.

In conclusion of this vehement press release, the Minister of Sports specifies that Ukraine “will decide later”after consulting the sports movement and the highest political authorities in the country, whether or not it participates in the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris in 2024.

In an interview with World At the end of November, Matvi Bidny said he expected Moscow to exploit future sporting results from the Paris Olympics. “I guarantee you that if Russian athletes under a neutral banner participate in the Olympic Games, the day after their return to Russia, they will wear “Z” [symbole de ralliement à la guerre] on their shoulders and will be used by this immense propaganda machine”he declared.

Opposed since the start of the war in Ukraine to the reintegration of Russian athletes, the Briton Sebastian Coe, president of the international athletics federation, affirmed, late Friday, that there would be no Russians in its discipline in Paris in 2024.