The position of the number one Olympic sport was highly anticipated. This Thursday, the president of World AthleticsSebastian Coe, announced that Russians and Belarusians will remain “excluded” from international athletics competitions in the “near future” due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On another aspect, the Council of the International Federation has decided to reinstate the Russian Athletics Federation, which had been suspended following a vast doping scandal for more than seven years. This does not change anything concerning the immediate participation of Russian athletes in competitions.
The IOC has revived the debate
A year and a half before the Paris Olympics, the debate swells on the reintegration of Russian and Belarusian athletes into world sport. After having “recommended” in February 2022 their exclusion from international competitions, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had shown at the beginning of the year its desire “to explore ways” to bring Russian and Belarusian athletes back into the fold of world sport. , possibly under a neutral banner, provided that they “did not actively support the war in Ukraine”.
World Athletics has decided to establish a working group on the subject of the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes due to the invasion of Ukraine.