How Russians Are Competing at the Olympics

Athletes from all over the world are competing in the Paris Summer Olympics in Paris, which officially kicked off with the opening ceremony on Friday. But while most athletes will compete under their country’s name, those from Russia and Belarus will compete a little differently—as individual neutral athletes, or “AINs”.

The change comes as the International Olympic Committee made the decision to ban both Russia and Belarus from the 2024 Games related to the war in Ukraine. In Paris, any athletes from these countries who desire to participate in these games must do so as individual neutral athletes. 

The war in Ukraine isn’t the only turbulent backdrop to this year’s Summer Olympics; athletes will also be competing amid an ongoing war between Israel and Hamas that continues to take lives every day. While the International Olympic Committee’s public commitment to staying apolitical, this year’s summer games in Paris are “the most geopolitically charged Olympics that we’ve seen in decades,” Jules Boykoff, a former Olympian turned political science professor at Pacific University, tells TIME. 

Here’s what to know about how athletes from Russia and Belarus are competing in this year’s Paris Summer Olympics. 

Why are Russia and Belarus banned from the Paris Olympics? 

Russia and Belarus were initially sanctioned by the IOC in February 2022, immediately after the invasion of Ukraine began. Because the invasion took place shortly after the winter Olympics games had ended, the IOC said that Russia’s invasion had violated the Olympic Truce, an agreement for nations not to attack one another during the time period of one week before the Olympic games up until one week after the end of the Paralympic games. Belarus was also accused of violating the Olympic truce by allowing Russia to use its territory for military purposes.

The Russian Olympic Committee was officially suspended in October 2023 after it declared that Ukrainian sports organizations in the regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia were under its authority. The IOC said this was a violation of the Olympic Charter, which specifies that these regions are under the jurisdiction of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine.

What are AINs? 

AIN stands for the French phrase “Athlete Individuel Neutre” which means “Individual Neutral Athlete” in English. This category will allow Russian and Belarussian athletes to compete in the Olympic Games, so long as they do not outwardly express support for the war in Ukraine or conduct work for any of the Russian national security agencies. The athletes will compete under a neutral flag and if they win a medal, a neutral athlete song will be played in lieu of their country’s national anthem. 

Boykoff says that IOC officials felt that it was important to create a possible path for Russian and Belarussian athletes to compete, since being banned from the games could be devastating to individual athletes and harmful to their livelihoods. “For a lot of sports, the Olympics are your once in a lifetime chance to make a name for yourself,” says Boykoff. “That’s why the International Olympic Committee chose to create this path, as complicated as it is.”

However, not all Russian and Belarussian athletes will be eligible to compete this way. World Athletics, which is the International governing body for track and field competitions, made the decision to ban Russia and Belarus from competing in its competitions, thereby making it impossible for Russian and Belarusian track and field athletes to compete at the Olympics. 

How can the IOC ban Russia if it is apolitical? 

The IOC says  that it is not political, but the experts that TIME spoke to both said that its actions indicate otherwise. “The IOC, to some extent, operates in a fantasy land,” says Professor John Hoberman, a professor at the University of Texas Austin who writes about the history and culture of sport. Hoberman says that the Olympics have had serious political dimensions going all the way back to the 1936 Munich games held in Nazi Germany.

Hoberman says that Russia’s situation was also exacerbated by the doping scandal during the Sochi 2014 Olympics, during which Russia was found to have systematically falsified drug tests for its athletes at the Games. “This was a humiliation of the IOC. It was a humiliation of the World Anti-Doping Agency which is affiliated with the IOC,” says Hoberman. In the wake of the scandal, the IOC banned Russia from competing under its own name and flag, and Russian athletes competed under the “Russian Olympic Committee” (ROC) name during the Tokyo and Beijing Olympic Games. 

Which Russian and Belarusian athletes accepted or declined their Paris Olympics AIN invitations?

A total of 32 athletes have accepted their invitations to compete as individual neutral athletes: 

Another 28 athletes were offered invitations to compete as individual neutral athletes but chose to decline the offer: