The 2024 Paris Olympics got underway with a unique opening ceremony that featured Celine Dion, Lady Gaga and a naked man covered in blue paint.
But as a flotilla of barges carried more than 6,000 athletes along the Seine, there was a notable absentee: Russia.
The country’s athletes had initially been banned from competing at the Summer Games following the illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Last year, however, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reversed its decision and said they would allow Russian athletes to compete if they met strict criteria.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, accused the IOC of “ethnic discrimination”.
The Athletic explains why Russian and Belarusian athletes will be competing under a neutral banner.
Can Russian athletes compete at the Paris Olympics?
In theory, yes — but it is more nuanced than that.
The IOC’s executive board announced a set of criteria in March 2023 that would need to be adhered to if a Russian athlete is to compete — under the banner ‘Individual Neutral Athlete’, referred to as AIN due to the French translation to Athletes Individuels Neutres — at the Summer Games.
Athletes were required to qualify for the Summer Games and then pass a vetting check, first by their international sports federation, such as World Athletics and the International Gymnastics Federation, and then by the IOC.
The IOC set up an Individual Neutral Athlete Eligibility Review Panel (AINERP) to evaluate eligibility against the conditions they set out. These included athletes not being allowed to ‘actively’ support the war in Ukraine, or being ‘contracted to the Russian military or national security agencies’.
In total, there are 15 Russian athletes taking part in the Paris Olympics as an Individual Neutral Athlete, including Daniil Medvedev, the former world number one, who is one of seven tennis players competing under the banner. Other Russian athletes are represented in canoeing, cycling, gymnastics and swimming.
Tamara Dronova competed for the AIN team in the cycling individual time trial (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)
Only athletes in individual events are being permitted to compete, rather than those in team sports. That means, for example, that Russian athletes would not be able to compete in the men’s 4x100m relay.
Other criteria included meeting all of the anti-doping requirements, while only individuals deemed with a high-performance, medical, or technical role will be considered for personnel accreditation to allow the Individual Neutral Athletes access to the same support network as other competitors.
Russian government or state officials are also banned from attending the Paris Olympics and cannot be invited as guests or accredited.
Stanislav Pozdnyakov, the head of Russia’s Olympic Committee (R.O.C.), criticised the Russian athletes competing in the Summer Games, calling them “foreign agents”.
In a show of support to those who chose not to compete, the R.O.C. made payouts of $2.3million to at least 245 athletes, the ROC’s director general told RIA Novosti, a Russian state-owned news agency.
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How is this different from previous Summer Games?
Russia was banned from the Tokyo Olympics following one of the worst doping scandals in sports history, which included a lengthy operation to swap dirty doping samples for clean ones before covering it up.
It involved dozens of sports and involved more than 1,000 athletes, coaches and sports officials, even extending to the country’s state security services.
At the Tokyo Games, which took place in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, 334 Russian athletes who had not been caught doping were still allowed to compete, but only under the R.O.C. banner.
Their team could not be known as ‘Russia’, the Russian flag was banned and so was the country’s anthem, but the R.O.C still finished fifth in the medals table, winning 20 golds and 71 medals overall.
Svetlana Kolesnichenko and Svetlana Romashina won artistic swimming gold for the R.O.C in Tokyo (Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty Images)
At the Rio Olympics in 2016, Russia competed as normal and finished fourth in the medal standings, winning 19 gold medals.
Their participation at the event came less than a month after an independent investigation commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) concluded Russian athletes had been part of a ‘state-directed failsafe system’ of doping, using the ‘disappearing positive (test) methodology’.
On July 24, 2016, the IOC rejected WADA’s recommendation to ban Russia from the Summer Games.
Will the Russian national anthem be played?
The IOC’s rulebook states clearly that a Russian flag, emblem, or the national anthem will not be seen or heard in an official capacity during the Paris Olympics.
The participation name and code must also not have any association with the Russian Federation, with public displays of the country name or sports organisation not permitted.
It is stated by the IOC that if a flag needs to be used for a Russian athlete during a medal ceremony or in other such circumstances, then the flag of the event is to be used instead.
Regarding the national anthem, a ‘neutral melody’ will be played during a medal ceremony should an Individual Neutral Athlete win a medal.
On top of that, their uniform must be ‘completely white or unicolour’ and is not allowed any reference to the Russian Federation and cannot display any national identification of Russia.
From a commercial standpoint, their uniform is not allowed to display any organisation or emblem that can be identified as Russian, nor are athletes able to display messages that may have a direct or non-direct political connotation.
Belarusian Tatsiana Klimovich is representing AIN in rowing in Paris (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
Are any other countries covered in the Individual Neutral Athletes team?
Belarusian athletes will also have to compete under the Individual Neutral Athletes banner.
The country has been banned from the Olympics for the first time after its president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, supported Putin and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
On July 20, the IOC announced that 18 athletes from Belarus, which shares a border with Russia and Ukraine, will not be at the Paris Olympics.
The same rules regarding uniforms, flags and the national anthem will apply to Belarusian athletes competing as neutrals.
Can fans display Russian or Belarusian flags at Olympic venues?
No. According to the Paris 2024 Games rulebook, only the flags of the ‘countries and territories’ participating in the Olympics are allowed.
And with Russian and Belarusian athletes competing as neutrals instead of representing their country, the national flags will not be permitted.
What have other countries said about Russian and Belarusian athletes competing?
In February 2023, 35 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, publicly confirmed they were against Russian and Belarusian athletes competing in Paris.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, attended the online meeting between the countries and noted that 228 Ukrainian athletes and coaches had died as a result of Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine athletes at the Paris 2024 opening ceremony (Esa Alexander/AFP via Getty Images)
“If there’s an Olympic sport with killings and missile strikes, you know which national team would take the first place,” Zelensky told the ministers on the call.
Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland, speaking earlier this week, said: “If it was up to me, there would be no Russian athletes here. You have to pay the price.”
In March, Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, criticised the IOC’s neutrality rules, calling them “illegal, unfair and unacceptable”, while also saying the IOC “has strayed from its stated principles and has turned to racism and neo-Nazism”.
(Top photo: Daniil Medvedev; by Andy Cheung/Getty Images)