Russia , as well as neighboring country Belarus, have been banned from the Olympic Games ; however, their respective athletes will still be able to compete in France .
The Paris event marks the fourth Games in a row in which athletes from Russia have not been able to compete under their own flag. While Belarusian entrants will also join their Russian counterparts as they compete under a neutral identity, meaning there will be no flag, anthem, colours or identifications of Russia or Belarus displayed in the Olympics.
Both country’s absence is due to sanctions imposed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The IOC condemned the attack at the time, stating the Olympic Truce had been breached, forbidding Russia and Belarus – a close ally of Russia who aided in the invasion – from competing.
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The IOC initially banned Russian and Belarusian athletes following the invasion but the organization later decided athletes from the two countries would be able to participate as neutrals if they adhered to strict eligibility conditions.
Those included: Athletes must not actively support the war and athletes must not be contracted to the Russian or Belarusian military or national security agencies. While team events were not permitted.
No Russian or Belarusian government state officials have been invited to or accredited for the Olympics. France have also banned Russian and Belarusian citizens from the games due to suspicions of foreign interference.
Putin said last year that although he was in favor of Russians competing at the Games, a further assessment was needed regarding what the neutral status would mean for his country’s representatives. "If the IOC's artificial conditions are designed to cut off the best Russian athletes and portray at the Olympics that Russian sport is dying, then you need to decide whether to go there at all," he said.
Russian athletes previously competed under a neutral flag after the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) was banned for widespread doping violations. Russia was banned from the Tokyo Olympics in December 2019, with the initial ban of four years reduced to two years in 2020, but Putin’s aggression into Ukraine means there will still be no display of Russia at the Games.
The last time Russia was able to compete under its own flag was in the 2016 Rio Games. At the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, athletes competed as OARs (Olympic Athletes of Russia) and in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Tokyo Games, Russians who could prove they were clean amid the doping scandal competed as ROC.
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