Olympics supremos plan for 'neutral' Russian and Belarusian athletes in Paris
Organisers of the Paris 2024 Olympics have confirmed they are thrashing out plans to allow Russian athletes into the event as "neutrals", despite calls from the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to ban them due to the conflict between the two countries.
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Bosses at the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which oversees the four-yearly event, said it had a unifying mission during a time of war.
No athlete should face discrimination based only on the passport they held, they added.
“A pathway for athletes’ participation in competition under strict conditions should therefore be further explored,” the IOC said in a statement published after an executive board meeting.
Russia was not directly condemned in the IOC's statement. But athletes who have been actively supporting the war in Ukraine face exclusion from the Paris Games, which start on 26 July 2024.
'No place at the Olympics'
The IOC cited the example of Yugoslavians competing as independent athletes at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics while the former nation was under United Nations sanctions during a civil war.
The willingness of Olympic leaders to involve competitors from Russia and its military ally Belarus emerged as a point of contention when Zelensky spoke to the French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week.
“I particularly emphasised that athletes from Russia should have no place at the Olympic Games in Paris,” Zelensky wrote on his Telegram account of his talks with Macron.
However, Stanislav Pozdnyakov, the head of the Russian Olympic Committee, welcomed the IOC's move.
“The voice of common sense has been heard,” he said. “The priority for us remains the same – to secure the rights and interests of our athletes.”
The IOC's top executives met earlier this week to formalise its position after consulting its members, sports governing bodies and representatives of athletes.
Despite some criticism during those rounds of talks – including from the Ukrainian Olympic body – the IOC claimed its stated aims were backed by a vast majority.
Russians would be classed as neutral athletes and in no way represent their state or any other organisation in their country, the IOC said.
Wimbledon ban
Last summer, the Wimbledon tennis tournament banned Russian and Belarusian players from competing.
The move was condemned by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), which run the men's and women's professional tours. The bodies retaliated by removing ranking points from the event.
Tennis players from the two countries competed at the US Open last September and have been in action at the Australian Open in Melbourne.
On Thursday, Elena Rybakina from Kazakhstan beat the two-time champion Victoria Azarenka from Belarus to advance to Saturday's final in the women's singles.
Rybakina will face either Aryna Sabalenka from Belarus or Magde Linette from Poland.
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