IOC blocks Russian athletes from Olympic opening ceremony

Russian and Belarusian athletes will not be allowed to participate in the parade of nations at the opening ceremony of the Paris Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said.

The athletes, who will be competing in the Games under a neutral flag, "will not participate in the parade of delegations and teams during the opening ceremony since they are individual athletes," IOC director James McLeod said after an IOC executive board meeting on Tuesday in Lausanne, Switzerland. 

A decision on whether they would participate in the closing ceremony had not yet been made, McLeod added.

Negative response from Moscow

The IOC decision has not gone down well with the Kremlin. On Wednesday, spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the move amounted to the destruction of the Olympic idea.

"Of course, this is absolutely contrary to the entire ideology of the Olympic movement, and this does not paint the IOC in a good light," he said.

IOC vetting Russian, Belarusian athletes

Russian and Belarusian athletes who qualify for the Games will do so without their flags and anthems. Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, athletes from both countries were banned from many international sporting events. 

The IOC is now allowing them to compete in individual sports if they don't support the war and have no affiliation with Russia's military or security forces.

So far, 12 Russians and seven Belarusians have qualified for the Games, and McLeod said he estimated 36 Russians and 22 Belarusians would eventually qualify. Their final participation, however, will depend on an IOC review examining each athlete.

IOC refuses outright ban

The decision to bar Russian representation at the Olympic Games has come under fire from both Moscow and Kyiv.

Ukraine has urged the IOC to issue an outright ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes, but the committee said in December that such a move would create a precedent that could end up with the Olympics becoming used as a political pawn.

The IOC did, however, suspend Russia's Olympic Committee last year after it unilaterally recognized regional sports organizations in the four Ukrainian territories that Russia illegally annexed in 2022.

Russia's attempt to appeal that decision was shot down by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in February.

Moscow has also said it will run its own Friendship Games in Moscow and Ekaterinburg after this year's Paris Olympic Games, a move the IOC called a "cynical attempt to politicize sport."

McLeod said that the executive board would decide on any possible sanctions for athletes who take part in the Friendship Games.

This drew a sharp response from Moscow, with foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova saying it demonstrated "how far the IOC has moved away from its stated principles and slipped into racism and neo-Nazism."

The IOC has yet to respond to the Kremlin and foreign ministry statements. 

pfd,ab/sms (dpa, AP)