Plenty of time to rule on Russian athletes for Paris Olympics: IOC

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) still has sufficient time to decide whether Russian and Belarusian athletes will take part in next year’s Paris summer Olympics, it said on Wednesday.

The IOC sanctioned Russia and its ally Belarus after Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022 but earlier this year recommended that their athletes be allowed to return to international competition as neutrals.

Many international federations have since included Russian and Belarusian athletes who can compete with no flag or anthem, while athletes who support the war or are contracted to military or national security agencies are excluded.

But that does not include the Paris 2024 Olympics with a separate decision to be taken by the IOC.

Paris will host the Games between July 26-August 11, 2024.

Olympic qualifiers across many sports are already under way, with Russian and Belarusian athletes having also been given spots in Asian events to circumvent European qualifiers where their participation is essentially impossible without triggering major disruptions to the events themselves.

Some federations, however, have decided not to allow athletes from those countries back, going against the IOC recommendations. Among them is World Athletics that had already suspended Russia over a doping scandal years before the invasion in 2022.