The IOC allowed Russians to participate in the 2024 Olympics in neutral status

International Olympic Committee (IOC) still allowed domestic athletes, the vast majority of whom have been in a regime of either partial or complete isolation from top competitions for almost two years, to participate in the 2024 Summer Olympics in a neutral status. True, it is unlikely that the group of Russians in Paris will be large and capable of winning a sufficient number of awards to be close to the leaders of the medal standings. Those who want to compete at the Olympics will still have to compete in qualifying tournaments, despite the fact that approximately half of them have already been left behind, and in addition, prove their compliance with the still strict IOC criteria and their peculiar interpretations used by some federations.

The International Olympic Committee announced the decision of its executive committee to allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in the Summer Olympics in Paris as so-called individual neutral athletes (AIN), if they qualified for it in accordance with the regulations of the relevant federation. They will compete in white or plain uniforms bearing the acronym AIN or the IOC-approved emblem and will be required, like everyone else, to sign the terms and conditions of participation in the Games. They contain, among other things, an obligation to respect the Olympic Charter and the “peaceful mission of the Olympic movement.” The IOC clarified that the September suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) due to the inclusion of the Olympic Councils of the DPR and LPR, as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, did not in any way affect its position on the rights of “individual neutral athletes.”

Formally, this is extremely high-profile news. It was on the basis of the IOC recommendations, which were issued immediately after the start of the military operation in Ukraine and which were followed by the vast majority of other structures, that Russian and Belarusian athletes found themselves barred from international competitions for a long time. In March of this year, the isolation regime was relaxed. This comes after the IOC adjusted its recommendations, calling on federations to ensure Russians and Belarusians are allowed into their competitions. However, there was still no clarity regarding the main competition. The IOC repeatedly postponed the decision on the Paris Olympics, and in the fall made it clear that it plans to make it only in March.

The executive committee’s fresh statement is the fruit of pressure from sports federations in summer sports who insisted on certainty and more room for maneuver.

A few days ago at the Olympic summit in Lausanne they contacted to the IOC with a request “as soon as possible” to “recognise as eligible to participate in the Olympic Games in Paris 2024 those neutral athletes who have passed or will qualify.”

But at first glance, the speed of the IOC’s response to the appeal can be regarded as a serious success for Russia, whose leaders – from the field of sports and not only – over the past two years have always characterized the IOC’s strategy in relation to it as “discrimination” and “lawlessness.” But the reality is still a little different. In fact, the new decision of the IOC does not mean that Russian participation in the Paris Olympics, even if we consider the ban on the use of national symbols and, in principle, any association with the native country as not such an essential detail, will be even remotely similar to more or less full-fledged, then there is one that happened at the previous Summer Games, held in 2021 in Tokyo. The domestic delegation, which also had a neutral status due to problems, relevant to anti-doping policy, consisted of 335 athletes who won a total of 71 medals, 20 of them gold.

There are two high barriers on the way of athletes from Russia to Paris. The first is, in fact, the need to undergo qualifications indicated by the executive committee. All federations have different rules for selecting athletes for the Olympic Games. But most often they involve mandatory participation in various competitions that have an official qualifying rank. So, at the moment, about half of them are left behind, among them extremely significant ones. At the same time, dozens of Russian elite-level athletes from different sports missed them, and their chances of qualifying for Paris turned into very modest. In a communiqué following a meeting of the IOC Executive Committee, without naming names, he cited the number of athletes from “isolated” countries who had already passed the selection. There were only 11 of them: eight Russians and three Belarusians.

The second barrier is perhaps even more difficult. The IOC emphasized that, when announcing the admission of athletes from Russia and Belarus to the Olympics, it did not abandon the application of the criteria published back in March. Only compliance with them allows you to qualify for a return to international competitions. These criteria are extremely strict.

The IOC has introduced a ban on the performance of Russians and Belarusians in team sports and disciplines, that is, in Paris, in any case, they will not be able to compete not only in basketball or handball tournaments, but also, say, in synchronized swimming and group exercises in rhythmic gymnastics.

In addition, “active” support for a military special operation and membership in the armed forces of the Russian Federation and “national security agencies” were banned.

To be on the safe side, the IOC clarified after the Executive Committee that “individual neutral athletes and their support personnel must refrain from any activity or communication related to the national flag, anthem, emblem or any other symbol of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus, their National Federations or National Olympic Committees , or support for hostilities in Ukraine (including the Z symbol, the colors of the St. George’s ribbon and any other military emblems and slogans), on any official platform or in the media” “before, during and after the Olympic Games in Paris.” Plus, they “must not participate in any alternative ceremonies organized by a third party” during the same unspecified time period.

An additional difficulty in assessing the prospects for Russian athletes to get to Paris is that, as practice has shown, sports federations do not have a uniform approach to the issue of applying criteria. Over the past few months, they have split into a number of categories.

Some – for example, those in charge of tennis, wrestling and judo – have shown themselves to be absolutely “loyal” to Russia and are ready to admit almost all leaders to top tournaments, not paying attention to the fact that they are registered in such sports societies, like CSKA or Dynamo.

Some, like World Athletics, are still delaying their return. Some, like the International Fencing Federation (FIE), seemingly promptly following the IOC recommendations, still “filtered out” all the celebrities.

Some, like the International Aquatics Federation (World Aquatics), have invented, in addition to the criteria of the main structure, their own, unprecedented in rigidity, the task of meeting which seems almost impossible.

In this regard, the reaction to the IOC decision by the Russian establishment is quite predictable, and there is not a hint of satisfaction, much less triumph, in it. Thus, the Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation Oleg Matytsin in his statement, which quotes TASS, described the IOC’s terms as “discriminatory” and “reputational damage to the image of the Olympic Games.” According to Mr. Matytsin, “the main thing today is strengthening our national system,” and “what is happening on international sports grounds is a temporary phenomenon, temporary short-sighted decisions of the heads of individual federations, the heads of the IOC.” True, the Minister of Sports added that “those athletes who have achieved success in competitions and achieved the right to participate, they will probably participate.” “We always root for our people, these are our athletes, members of our sports family, a product of our sports system, no matter how they try to shred it, create a split within Russian society, pit some athletes against others,” added Oleg Matytsin.

Kommersant’s source in the Russian sports leadership also said that the decision of the IOC executive committee “should not be taken as news proving that the situation is changing for the better for Russia”: “There are no changes.” In his opinion, “a small group of individual Russian athletes who have passed all the commissions that have already tested them, which already exist and which will appear, will go to Paris, and they will get a handful of medals.” Kommersant’s interlocutor, describing the current situation, recalled the story of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in 2018. Before her, in the wake of the “doping crisis,” the IOC also deprived the ROC of recognition. At the Olympics, the Russian team performed in a neutral status and with a greatly truncated composition due to the “filters” invented by the IOC and international sports federations, without the lion’s share of leaders. She won only two golds and found herself outside the top ten in the medal standings.

Alexey Dospehov