The IOC announced that the Olympic Committees of Russia and Belarus are not will receive an official invitation to participate in the 2024 Games in Paris. What does this mean in practice — explains the correspondent of Sport.
Most importantly, the new IOC statement in no way implies that Russian athletes will not compete at the Olympic Games next summer. No, a decision on this matter will be announced later (very likely next week, when the Executive Board and the IOC session will be held). Moreover, the statement contains all the same hints that we have been hearing from IOC President Thomas Bach for the past six months — Russians and Belarusians, most likely, will be allowed to the Olympics. Of course, according to the recommendations adopted by the IOC Executive Board on the participation of athletes from these countries at the present time in international competitions — in a neutral status.
The IOC's decision, announced on Thursday, means only one thing. Neutral status, as expected, this time will not be covered by any wording like «Olympic athletes from Russia», as was the case at previous Games in which we participated, being under sanctions for doping cases. Now the IOC intends not to give any reason for criticism of itself from the West — and therefore the ROC will not be involved in any way in the preparation of the Olympic team.
It is unlikely that this decision came as a shock to Russian sports officials. Negotiations with the IOC have been going on for a long time, and this, as one might assume, is their first result. True, there may be different interpretations of this decision. For example, will the ROC be allowed to organize a solemn farewell ceremony for those Olympians who do get to Paris, in their homeland? Will they go to the French capital on an Olympic charter, or will the IOC strictly control that they fly with transfers via Istanbul, the main transport hub for those Russians who want to get to Europe or America? The questions may be secondary, but in this case the nuances may be important.
And, finally, the IOC statement does not mean that negotiations with the Russian side regarding the criteria for participation in the Olympic Games have been terminated. Surely consultations about whether athletes from societies related to law enforcement agencies will still be allowed to compete are ongoing. But it is obvious that without the participation of the ROC, the process of admitting Russian athletes to the Olympics will be handled by a certain commission, which the IOC will specifically create to carry out this procedure.
The first reaction from the Russian authorities is already there. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko said: “We really hope to receive an invitation, we do not refuse anything, and we are very happy if our athletes are given the opportunity to compete. The question is in exchange for what. Therefore, behind the humiliations that the Anglo-Saxons come up with — to perform under a neutral flag and without an anthem — they now add that you should publicly condemn the decisions to conduct a special military operation, we do not agree with this. «
However, on In fact, the IOC has not yet announced such requirements. And the recommendations of the IOC Executive Board of March 2023 say nothing about them. Actually, even the British organizers of Wimbledon did not demand from the Russian players to condemn anything publicly. Yes, and Daniil Medvedev, and Mirra Andreeva, and the rest of our tennis players, before coming to London, signed declarations of neutrality, but did not make political statements. Their names on the scoreboard do not have a flag, but if you open any article about the same Andreeva, which the British tabloids have been full of for the past ten days, there will be a lot of references to Russia, Moscow, and Krasnoyarsk, which is native to the tennis player. And this means that the neutral status is still a very conditional thing.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.