Will Russian athletes participate in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games? Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russia and Belarus have been banned from world sport. And if many athletes from both countries have since resumed competition – under a neutral banner, on an individual basis and provided that they have not actively supported the war in Ukraine – the question of their participation in the 2024 Olympics remains unanswered. .
Tuesday, December 5, during the 12e Olympic summit, representatives of international federations and national Olympic committees (NOCs) called for more “clarity” on the issue to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and admission ” as soon as possible “ Russian and Belarusian athletes under neutral status at the Paris Games.
This meeting – behind closed doors, at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne – generally makes it possible to establish the majority positions within the Olympic world. In 2022, it was during an Olympic summit that the conditional reintegration of Russia and Belarus into world sport was initiated.
At the end of 2023, the request is clear: the reintegration of athletes from the countries concerned – under a strict neutral banner – and a clarification of “all Olympic qualification procedures for all athletes concerned”demanded the representatives of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF), according to the press release from the Olympic body.
Stating that “overall, the vast majority of athletes believe that athletes should not be punished for the actions of their governments”, the president of the IOC Athletes’ Commission, the Finnish Emma Terho, also announced that “Athletes would appreciate knowing whether neutral individual athletes [vont] to be able to compete in Paris, (…) just like the conditions of their participation, because the Olympics are fast approaching.” And the qualification process is well underway for most disciplines.
The IOC does not specify when it will decide
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the question of the participation of Russians and Belarusians in the Olympic high mass has become a sea serpent. The IOC has been repeating since March that it will decide on their possible admission “at the appropriate time”but without ever specifying when he will pronounce himself.
On the Ukrainian side, the government has been speaking out for a year against what it perceives as “a kind of flirtation with the attacker”. In an interview with World At the end of November, Matvi Bidny, the Ukrainian sports minister, stressed that a “status of neutrality for Russian athletes [serait] of irresponsibility ». Specifying that the participation of Ukrainian athletes in the Games was not assured if the Russians were reinstated.
Faced with these requests presented during the Olympic summit, the IOC limited itself to “confirm that the participation of such neutral individual athletes in the Olympics could only occur under strict conditions” set in March 2023, specifies the press release.
And the authority to specify that “nor the qualification system [pour les Jeux de Paris] developed by the international federations, nor the number of places allocated to a sport will be modified for neutral athletes holding a Russian or Belarusian passport. But without saying, once again, the moment when he will decide on the question, while the Paris Games begin in a little less than eight months.