When Russia invaded Ukraine back in 2022 with help from Belarus, the International Olympic Committee responded by barring the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes as punishment for starting a war that’s still being fought.
Later, though, that policy was modified to allow qualifying Russians and Belarusians to compete at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris as “neutral” athletes, without flags, uniforms or other symbols of their countries.
The same was true for the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina, Italy, earlier this year. Once again, only a few individual athletes from Russian and Belarus were permitted to compete in the Olympics.
Now, the IOC is lifting the ban on Belarus. Russian athletes continue to be under the same restrictions because its national Olympic committee was suspended by the IOC. There’s also a new investigation into Russia’s anti-doping system.
“Neutrality, and our remit is sport,” IOC President Kirsty Coventry told reporters Thursday after being asked whether it was becoming too difficult to ban countries gives calls for the U.S. and Israel to receive similar treatment over launching a war in Iran earlier this year.
“We’ve got to figure out, what does that mean. I think we’re doing that,” said Coventry, who became the first woman and first African president of the Switzerland-based IOC nearly a year ago. “We made it very clear that we want all athletes to be able to participate.”
The decision on Belarus shows that, she said, adding “when it comes to the Russian Olympic Committee, there has been some very constructive exchanges. But the difference is the Belarusian Olympic Committee has never been suspended.”
The IOC suspended Russia’s national Olympic committee in 2023, for adding new member organizations from Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, considered a violation of “territorial integrity.”
The Russian Olympic committee’s situation continues to be reviewed by the IOC’s legal affairs commission, but Coventry said there is “no dedicated timeline” for making a decision about whether the suspension should remain in place.
“We have to look, as an organization, and listen to all sides of the story. That’s what we feel that we’re doing,” she said.
What was described only as recent information about the scandal surrounding Russia’s anti-doping system for more than a decade has was discussed during this week’s IOC Executive Board meeting with “great concern,” Coventry said, but it’s an issue for the World Anti-Doping Agency.
“We do not know how long that will take,’ she said. An Olympic champion swimmer for Zimbabwe, Coventry noted she was still competing in 2016 and wants to be able to “assure the athlete community at large that it’s a fair field of play. That’s really very important for me.”
She did not detail the new allegations, but the British newspaper The Guardian reported the concern relates to claims linking the head of Russia’s anti-doping agency with a government-supported doping program at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
A Russian leader expressed disappointment with the IOC.
“The reinstatement process has clearly been delayed, and we see no reason for it,“ Mikhail Degtyarev, Russia’s sports minister and the chairman of the Russian Olympic Committee also known as ROC, posted on his Telegram channel, according to a translation of a TASS news story.
The IOC was provided documents “long ago” that made the case for “the elimination of all legal grounds for a further ban on the ROC,” Degtyarev posted, adding, “We will decide on further steps based on the IOC’s comments.”