The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is studying, on Tuesday, the question of reintegrating Russian and Belarusian athletes into international competitions, who have been excluded since the end of February 2022 following the war in Ukraine.
With less than 500 days to go from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, will Russian and Belarusian athletes be there? Meeting in Lausanne for three days from Tuesday March 28, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) must clarify its position on the possible return or not of athletes from these two countries, as the qualifying competitions for the Olympics approach. Franceinfo: sport returns to this thorny issue.
What is the current situation ?
While the International Olympic Committee was considering last January “to explore ways“to gradually reintegrate Russian and Belarusian athletes, the latter are currently ostracized. Excluded from all international competition since the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army in February 2022, the athletes of these two nations cannot remain on the sidelines of competitions, considers the IOC: “No athlete should be banned from competition on the basis of their passport alone“, recalls the Committee.
From January, the authority marked out their return and two important principles were enacted: not to have “actively supported the war in Ukraine“, a criterion that promises to be difficult to assess, and to have followed the anti-doping program. If the two conditions are met, Russians and Belarusians could compete again “under neutral banner“. For now, lhe IOC gave no deadline and also asserts that the international federations remain the “only authorities” governing their trials.
What is the agenda?
For months, the IOC has been dithering about the reinstatement of the banished. The executive board foresees in the program of the conference, Tuesday, “review the conclusions and reactions recorded at the end of several telephone consultations“with its own members, the National Olympic Committees, the international federations and the representations of the athletes.
It also plans to address the “sanctions against Russia and Belarus and the status of athletes from these countries”just like the subject of the “solidarity” with Ukrainian sportsmen.
Which federations have already made decisions, with what consequences?
Pending an official decision from the IOC, the international federations are tackling the issue in dispersed order. Thursday, March 23, the international athletics federation confirmed that Russian and Belarusian athletes remain “excluded”. Conversely, fencing became on March 10 the first Olympic sport to reintegrate them from April, the start of its qualification period, “subject to possible future recommendations and decisions of the IOC“.
Following this decision, the Ukrainian Fencing Federation announced that it would boycott any competition in which Russian and Belarusian athletes were entered, while the German Federation refused to organize the World Cup stage planned for women’s foil in Tauberbischofsheim, scheduled in qualifying for the Olympics.
Some athletes have spoken directly to express their opposition to this reinstatement, such as the American foil fencers Lee Kiefer, crowned at the Tokyo Games, and Gerek Meinhardt, two-time Olympic bronze medalist (2016, 2021) or the French saber fencer Manon Brunet -Apithy, Olympic team vice-champion in 2021.
