The FIE decided this Friday to reinstate the Russian and Belarusian athletes.
The fencing world approved the return to competition of Russian and Belarusian athletes on Friday at an extraordinary congress of the International Fencing Federation (FIE), a year and a half before the Paris Olympics.
Russian and Belarusian shooters will therefore be able to take part in the world circuit events, qualifying for the 2024 Olympics (July 26-August 11), which begin in early April 2023 without prejudging their participation in the event.
Fencing thus becomes the first sport to reintegrate athletes from Russia and Belarus under a neutral banner, one year after their exclusion due to the war in Ukraine. The decision of the FIE, which concerns the individual and team events, nevertheless leaves the hand to the IOC since it will be effective from April 2023 “subject to possible recommendations / future decisions of the IOC”, a-t-t -we learned from a national federation that took part in the extraordinary congress.
The members of the FIE, meeting in an extraordinary congress in Lausanne on Friday, voted about 65% in favor of the return of the athletes, teams and officials of the two countries, according to this source not wishing to be identified. Before this vote, the Ukrainian Fencing Federation had made a request to exclude from the agenda the subject of the reinstatement of Russian and Belarusian athletes, but its request had not received the necessary votes among the 136 voters.
Flagship and controversial nation
The international body had to position itself due to the imminent start of the qualifying phase for the Paris Olympics, which will run until spring 2024, with eight World Cup stages, a European championship and a world championship allowing them to accumulate points until March 31, 2024, before additional events by geographical area.
This complex system, which results in an individual and team ranking, makes collective performance particularly important: for each weapon (sabre, foil and epee) and gender, the four best nations, as well as four others qualified per continent, can thus compete. line up at the Olympics. The Russian shooters, among the best in the world, had won three gold medals (eight in total) at the Tokyo Olympics, while competing under the banner of the Russian Olympic Committee. The world ranking is therefore upset for the time being by the absence of some of its biggest names, who will have the opportunity to replace themselves before the Paris Olympic meeting in the summer of 2024, if the IOC authorizes their arrival.
Their return to competition poses a first milestone for the participation in the Games of the two delegations, while the hostility to their return comes mainly from Europe. The Olympic Council of Asia has already offered to reinstate them, and the African Olympic Committees voted last Saturday for their participation in the Paris Olympics, while the IOC’s position remains unclear, a year after a clear “recommendation” of exclusion. Russians and Belarusians in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.
Fencing adds an additional factor to this geopolitical balance of power: that of Russian influence within the bodies, since the FIE was led for 14 years by the oligarch Alicher Ousmanov, who left the interim to the Greek Emmanuel Katsiadakis.