IOC presents advice to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes return

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach speaks at the opening of the IOC executive board meeting at the Olympic House in Lausanne, Switzerland, on March 28, 2023. © Keystone / Laurent Gillieron

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has issued recommendations for the gradual return to international competitions for Russian and Belarusian athletes.

The IOC Executive Board’s recommendations concern only the return of those athletes to international competitions but not the 2024 Olympics where a separate decision will be taken later, IOC President Thomas Bach said on Tuesday.

“Sports organisations must have the sole responsibility to decide which athletes can take part in international competitions based on their sporting merits and not on political grounds or because of their passports,” Bach told reporters after the meeting.

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The IOC had sanctioned Russia and Belarus after the February 2022 invasion, but it now wants to see athletes come back across all sports and have a chance to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

It has set out a pathway for these competitors to earn Olympic slots through Asian qualifying and left it up to international federations to decide on organisation, but has faced headwinds, with Ukraine threatening to boycott the Paris Games should they compete there, even as neutrals.

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“Participation of athletes with Russian and Belarusian passports in international competitions works,” Bach had earlier said in his address at the start of the IOC’s executive board meeting at its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Russians and Belarusians have been competing as neutrals in some sports but their presence at some events, such as tennis tournaments, has triggered angry reactions from some other athletes.

Bach said the recommendations for events organisers and sports federations to follow include Russian and Belarusian athletes can only compete as neutrals, with no flag or anthem. They cannot take part in team events and must have a proven drugs testing record. Athletes who support the war or are contracted to their countries’ military or national security agency cannot take part.

The IOC advice presented on Tuesday marks a major shift in sport’s position on Russia and Belarus in 2023, a year which began ten months into a near-total exclusion by most governing bodies.

Bach has repeatedly pointed to advice from independent UN-recognised human rights experts that excluding athletes based only on their passports would be discrimination.

On Tuesday, Bach said one factor that changed IOC thinking is some sports having already reintegrated neutral Russians and Belarusians, such as tennis and cycling. Football’s exclusion of Russian teams by FIFA and UEFA was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.