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The complex discussion by the International Olympic Committee about allowing Russian athletes to compete in the Paris Games in 2024, when their country is still at war, did not help in the short term to improve the athletes’ standing among the top athletes in athletics largest sport of the Olympic Games, improve program.
In a year-end interview, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe hinted that the Russian war in Ukraine, not to mention the still-active doping sanctions against Russia that have been in place since 2015, has resulted in a more difficult path for Russia track and field athletes have in order to achieve the IOC goal of participating as neutral participants in either the next year’s World Championships or the following year’s Olympic Games.
Coe outlined a two-part process for Russia’s reinstatement. First, doping sanctions would need to be lifted at a meeting of the World Athletics Council in March, a prospect that seems more likely after a string of positive reports from a task force monitoring Russia’s compliance with reform efforts.
Only then, Coe said, would World Athletics begin debating whether to lift war-related sanctions on Russians, a result the IOC is pushing for and laid down at its own Olympic summit last week. Coe had previously said that the fate of Russian track and field athletes would be best served if Russia got “out of Ukraine”.
Pushed for exactly what it meant to “get out of Ukraine” — ie Donbass region, much of which has been effectively under Russian control for years, or Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, or something else — Coe replied, “I’m not a military expert and I’m certainly not entering this room. I’m just saying, that has to be the goal.”
In February, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, the IOC recommended that Russian and Belarusian athletes be barred from competing, citing concerns about the safety and integrity of competitions. Most Olympic sports, including athletics, followed the recommendation and imposed bans.
At last week’s Olympic summit, which Coe missed due to a family wedding, Russia’s military status in Ukraine was not part of the conclusions made public. The Declaration of the 11th Olympic Summit expressed the Olympic ideal of keeping politics out of sport and encouraging athletes to compete in peace, even if they came from countries at war. Further discussions were sought to find ways to allow Russian athletes who did not support the war to compete in major events.
It banned major events in Russia or Belarus and also the display of Russian flags or colors at sporting events or meetings.
It also placed the responsibility on international sports federations (IFs) such as World Athletics to decide whether the “safeguards” introduced shortly after the Russian invasion in February, which essentially excluded Russian and Belarusian athletes because their safety could not be guaranteed, were still appropriate.
Coe said IFs have long had the power to determine which athletes can compete in their events. That was the authority World Athletics used to ban all but 10 Russians from the Tokyo Games over the long-running doping case, while most other sports allowed for full rosters.
“The only outcome of the Olympic Summit that I agreed to was that the international federations should be the ones who, in their words, ‘carefully examine whether the reasons for the safeguards still exist,'” said Coe, “and that we will do.”
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