Russian and Belarusian athletes remain “excluded” from competitions

Less than a year and a half before the Paris Olympics, the president of the International Athletics Federation (World Athletics), Sebastian Coe, decided on Thursday March 23 to maintain the exclusion of Russians and Belarusians from international competitions. athletics in the “near future” due to the war in Ukraine.

However, the Council of the International Federation has decided to reinstate the Russian Athletics Federation, which was until then suspended following a doping scandal for more than seven years. But this decision does not change much. Russian and Belarusian athletes remain banned from competition for the time being, this time because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A choice that is not yet firm

After having “recommended” in February 2022 their exclusion from international competitions, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had wished at the end of January to “explore ways” of bringing Russian and Belarusian athletes back into the fold of world sport, under a neutral banner, for little that they don’t have “not actively supported the war in Ukraine”.

Although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the exclusion of Russians from the next Olympics on January 24, speaking directly to his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, “the large majority” of the interlocutors consulted by the IOC believe “that no athlete should not be banned from competition solely on the basis of their passport“, insists the Olympic body.