BERLIN (Reuters) – Russian and Belarusian athletes will be able to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games under a neutral banner, the International Olympic Committee announced on Friday.
Russian and Belarusian athletes were barred from international competitions after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, before being gradually reinstated as neutral athletes in most sports.
“The Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has decided that Neutral Individual Athletes (AIN) who have qualified on the competition floor through the existing qualification systems of international federations will be declared eligible for the Paris Olympic Games 2024,” the IOC said in a press release.
“Neutral individual athletes are athletes with a Russian or (Belarusian) passport,” he adds.
The IOC, which in October suspended the Russian Olympic Committee over its decision to include among its members sports organizations from four Ukrainian regions annexed in 2022, also said athletes who actively support the war in Ukraine would not be eligible.
The IOC clarified that no representative of the Russian or Belarusian government or state would be invited or receive accreditation to participate in the Paris 2024 events.
Ukraine condemned the committee’s decision, saying it violated Olympic principles and called on all its partners to condemn a “shameful decision.”
The Paris Olympic organizing committee said in a press release that it had taken note of the IOC’s decision, recalling that the qualification and implementation of the eligibility conditions for athletes participating in the Paris 2024 competitions under a neutral banner were a matter for of the IOC and international sports federations.
Paris 2024 is responsible for welcoming athletes who have qualified for the Olympic Games in the best conditions without taking into account their nationality, specified the organizing committee, which reaffirmed its solidarity with Ukraine.
The international athletics federation, World Athletics, for its part maintained its position according to which “all athletes, support staff and officials from Russia and Belarus are excluded from all events of the World Athletics Series and the “organization of any international or European athletics event”.
“We will continue to monitor the situation, but unless there is a major change in circumstances between now and the Olympic Games, this exclusion will apply to Paris 2024,” World Athletics added.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, French version by Bertrand Boucey and Augustin Turpin, edited by Kate Entringer and Camille Raynaud)
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