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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) drew up a roadmap on Wednesday to reintegrate Russian and Belarusian athletes into world sport, with the Paris Olympics in 2024 in sight.
Russian and Belarusian athletes should not be left out of world sport. The IOC, the Olympic body, paved the way on Wednesday January 25 for the reintegration of athletes from these two countries for the Olympic Games-2024. A politically sensitive subject: the day before, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded from his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that the Russians be already banned from the Olympic Games in Paris
“No athlete should be banned from competition on the sole basis of his passport”, however reaffirmed in a press release the executive of the Olympic body, after consulting representatives of athletes, international federations and national Olympic committees.
Behind this proclamation of principle, a series of behind-the-scenes maneuvers initiated last fall to bring Russians and Belarusians back into the fold of Olympism, excluded from most international competitions since the invasion of Ukraine at the end of February 2022 .
Neutral banner and strict doping control
The right to participate in the Olympics depends on the 28 international federations governing summer Olympic sports, and not on the IOC, which is trying for its part to find a coherence between “unifying mission” of sport and strong anti-Russian indignation, in particular in Europe.
The Olympic body, in the second curtain, has therefore been playing a crucial role for a year: “with a heavy heart”, it had “recommended” the exclusion of Russians and Belarusians, to “protect” their integrity and that of international competitions, and now beacon their return.
Its executive committee thus urged Wednesday to “study further the way” in which the sportsmen concerned could reintegrate the sporting events “under strict conditions”, offering for the first time a roadmap to the federations.
In detail, Russians and Belarusians would line up “as neutral athletes”, provided they had “not actively supported the war in Ukraine” and complied “fully with the World Anti-Doping Code”, “verifications” at the key.
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If an Athlete does not strictly comply with it, “the International Federation and/or the organizers of the sporting event in question should immediately exclude him (…) and report the incident to the IOC so that it considers other measures or sanctions”, continues the organization.
The IOC, like the representatives of the sportsmen and the Olympic world whom it consulted, reaffirms on the other hand its attachment to the “sanctions” striking Russia and Belarus: no international competition will be held on their soil, no flag, anthem, symbol or representative official will only be present at international events.
Help for Ukrainians
In addition, the Lausanne-based organization, which in March 2022 commissioned ex-pole vaulting legend Sergei Bubka to coordinate humanitarian aid for Ukrainian athletes, insists on “solidarity” with the Ukrainian Olympic community, to that the country has “a strong delegation to the 2024 Olympics in Paris as well as to the 2026 Olympics in Milan”.
But the whole question, now, will be how the international federations will take hold of the new recommendations, they who had been very quick to follow the directives of the IOC at the end of winter 2022.
In mid-December last, the president of the International Athletics Federation, Sebastian Coe, recalled that the Russians remained banned “for the near future”, especially since their case is more complex in this major Olympic discipline: regardless of the Ukrainian file, the Russian Federation has been suspended since 2015 for having implemented an institutionalized doping system, and progress in this regard must be reassessed in March.
Depending on the mode of qualification for the Olympic Games chosen in each sport, time is already running out: thus, the qualifications for the marathon event began on November 20, while they will begin on November 1is next July for most of the other 47 track and field events.
As for the organizers, we are waiting for “the rules which will be enacted”, underlined Wednesday evening Tony Estanguet, the president of the organizing committee of the Paris Olympics. “We hope that the universal role of the Olympics can be preserved in 2024, we do not know exactly what the geopolitical state of international relations will be.”
The mayor (PS) of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, for her part wished Thursday the participation of Russian athletes, but under a neutral banner. “I think this is a moment for sports people and that athletes should not be deprived of their competition. But I think and I plead, like a large part of the sports movement, for there not to be delegation under the Russian banner”, she declared on France 2.
With AFP