(Moscow) The Kremlin said on Friday it hoped for a return of Russia to “the Olympic family”, while Russian athletes were banned from competition after the launch of the Russian offensive in Ukraine.
Russia nevertheless aims to be able to send athletes, at least under a neutral banner, to the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“We hope that reason will triumph, that the idea of Olympism will triumph and we will rejoin the Olympic family,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
Last week, the president of the Russian Olympic Committee, Stanislav Pozdniakov, affirmed that Russia would not boycott the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris and that each Russian athlete was free to choose whether or not they wished to participate under a neutral banner.
PHOTO ARCHIVES AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Stanislav Pozdnyakov
Russian athletes were banned from competition after the Russian offensive in Ukraine began in 2022.
But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended last March the reintegration of Russian and Belarusian athletes into international competitions, under a neutral banner and “on an individual basis”, for those who did not actively support the offensive in Ukraine.
According to Mr. Pozdniakov, the IOC’s recommendations do not allow a large number of Russian athletes to participate in the Olympic Games.
Russian athletes participated in the Tokyo Games in 2021, under the banner of their Olympic committee “ROC” and not of their country, a sanction following the revelation of a state doping policy in Russia, notably during of the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.