The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said that they have sufficient time to decide on Russian and Belarusian athletes’ participation in the Paris 2024 Olympics. The IOC sanctioned Russia after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February last year. The IOC also banned Russia’s ally Belarus but overturned their decision earlier this year under the condition that Russian and Belarusian athletes would compete as neutrals.
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Many international federations have since included Russian and Belarusian athletes who can compete with no flag or anthem, while athletes who support the war or are contracted to military or national security agencies are excluded.
But that does not include the Paris 2024 Olympics with a separate decision still to be taken by the IOC.
IOC Spokesman on Russian and Belarusian athletes participation
“You want a time frame and we said we will take a decision when the time is right,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said. “That is the right thing to do and see how things are developing.”
“I think it (a decision) needs to be flexible because it is a moving situation. We will take a decision regarding Paris when the time is fit and there remains plenty of time for that decision to be taken,” he added.
Paris will host the Games between July 26-Aug 11, 2024.
Olympic qualifiers across many sports are already under way, with Russian and Belarusian athletes having also been given spots in Asian events to circumvent European qualifiers where their participation is essentially impossible without triggering major disruptions to the events themselves.
Some international sports federations, however, have decided not to allow athletes from those countries back, going against the IOC recommendations.
Among them is World Athletics which had already suspended Russia over a doping scandal years before the invasion in 2022.
“Each federation will be different, to be honest,” Adams told a press conference at the end of a two-day IOC Executive Board meeting in Lausanne.
“Federations that are independent can make up their own minds. We hope they will follow our guidelines. Many are starting to do so.”
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