By Gavin Kentch
Russian and Belarusian athletes who pass a screening process may compete in the 2026 Winter Olympics under a neutral flag, the International Olympic Committee announced earlier Friday.
The logistics, including a requirement for neutral, non-Russian uniforms and passing a vetting process to ensure that athletes have not actively supported the war in Ukraine, will remain largely unchanged from the 2024 Summer Olympics. 32 athletes from Russia or Belarus competed in Paris last summer, without, the IOC stated, “any incident on or off the field of play.”
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, five days after Russian athletes Alexander Bolshunov and Ivan Yakimushkin went 1–2 in the men’s “50-kilometer” mass start skate in Zhangjiakou, which was shortened to 28.4km due to cold conditions. The two men were officially competing on behalf of the Russian Olympic Committee, or ROC, following prior sanctions issued in response to Russia’s role in orchestrating a massive state-sponsored doping scheme and then covering up same.
The doping sanctions were followed by a fresh set of sanctions for the war in Ukraine. No Russian or Belarusian athletes competed on the World Cup in the 2022/2023, 2023/2024, or 2024/2025 seasons.
Embed from Getty ImagesAthletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport will compete in Milan–Cortina under a neutral flag, the IOC announced. They will be identified as an “Individual Neutral Athlete,” or AIN (the acronym comes from the French phrase “Athlète Individuel Neutre”), and wear a generic uniform. The Paris version of same is shown above; the Getty Images caption identifies this as “Gold medalist Ivan Litvinovich of Team Individual Neutral Athletes.”
Only athletes “who have not acted against the peace mission of the Olympic Movement by actively supporting the war in Ukraine” are eligible for participation, the IOC stated. Athletes who are “contracted to the Russian or Belarusian military or national security agencies” are facially barred.
International sport federations (e.g., FIS) will submit lists of qualified athletes to the IOC, a logistical document explains. At least two sports federations, those for bobsled and luge, have already stated that Russian athletes will not be eligible to compete. FIS has not yet released a statement on the matter; I have reached out to them for comment.
An internal IOC panel will review the lists of submitted athletes.
“In addition to the information obtained from the [individual federations] and via background checks,” the IOC states, “all relevant circumstances, in particular public statements, including those made on social media; participation in pro-war demonstrations or events; and the displaying of any symbol supporting the war in Ukraine, for example, the ‘Z’ symbol, will be taken into consideration.”
The IOC will make decisions on athlete eligibility. There is no right of appeal.
This is a developing story, and will be updated. Until then, I strongly recommend the most recent episode of the Skirious Problems podcast, “Will Russia race Olympics?,” for a substantive look at some of these issues. It was released one week ago today.
Read more: IOC document on standards for neutral athlete participation
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Gavin, I would be interested to know what the specific drug testing standards/requirements would be for the Russian athletes to be able to compete in the Olympics. How long would they need to have been tested continuously to qualify? Where have they been tested? I see reports that Russion athletes are training in Italy and other parts of Europe. Are they being tested there? Have international testers been allowed in Russia over the past couple of years to collect samples?
This is a great question, and one that I have certainly been curious about myself. The history of Rusada does… not exactly inspire confidence, shall we say.
I have some ideas in the mix on precisely this topic. Stay tuned, eventually. Thanks.
Researching a little more is seems like RUSADA still isn’t compliant with WADA, but maybe WADA doesn’t matter and it’s the ITA (international testing agency) results that hold sway?. Also, haven’t all the XC ski start spots been allocated by country?, or are there still some to be given out by early season results? If FIS holds firm on ban like Biathlon can the IOC make them allow some athletes to compete? It’s all very confusing.
Thanks for your reporting!
(as to your follow-up post, although I can’t post a reply to a reply apparently)
That’s a great question. My reading of the Olympic selection criteria is that Russia (or whatever we’re going to call them…) gets none of the spots in the first, second, third, or fourth rounds of quota allocation, because (a) they didn’t have any qualifying finishers at 2025 WSC in Trondheim, and (b) they didn’t rank in the year-end Nation’s Cup rankings for the 2024/2025 World Cup season. These are the bases on which *nearly* all Olympic quota spots are allocated.
If this were the end of the allocation process, “Russia” would be out of luck. However, the final 10 quota spots per gender will go to nations that did not have qualifying performances (read: fewer than 300 FIS points) through the end of the 2024/2025 season, but were able to log a qualifying performance during Period 1 of the 2025/2026 season. “Russia,” obviously, has scads of athletes capable of logging a sub–300-point race. Should “Russia” be allowed in World Cup races in Period 1 — and FIS punted on that decision earlier this week, but I personally expect them to allow “Russia” in when they meet next month — then athletes who race then should be able to qualify. (“Russia” would also have an incentive to cycle in a large number of starters, so as to achieve up to the maximum of eight athletes per gender.)
There is still a neutrality criterion administered by IOC, which I personally assume that athletes like Bolshunov and Stepanova fail. But if Russia starts World Cup races in Period 1, then “Russia” will definitely have some athletes in Milan–Cortina, on my reading.
Aren’t these the same rules as were before?
If we apply correctly the rules stated in the article, then Bolshunov is out, and I guess most of the top Russian athletes should not be allowed to compete. Alexey Bolshunov took part in at least one war-supporting concert, and is probably officially contracted by military. (Most Russian skiers are “military on paper”.) Otoh, the rules, by themselves, are written fairly, imho, and I support the rules. IF they are enforced.
Skirious podcast: Italy unfortunately seems to have ties with Russian corruption, it is not the first time someone in Italy acts in defiance of Europe general stance. A few recent examples: 1) Valery Gergiev (Putin’s close friend and the supporter of invasion) wanted to give a concert in Italy — only after strong public backlash and media campaign it was cancelled (but someone in high ranks thought it was a good idea in the first place), 2) As an exception, Italy allowed Russian sanctioned government officials to fly over Italy to visit Switzerland to participate in an obscure meeting of parliament speakers (it was too late to campaign against), 3) Bolshunov competed in a non-Fis race in Italy. (To be objective, at the same time, Italy actively supports and provides military aid to Ukraine.)
In this regard, skirious podcast, where probably Italian star Pellegrino participated might serve the wrong side’ purpose without knowing it.
Disclaimer 1: I did not listen to the latest skirous podcast on the subject. (I listened to one skirious podcast with Pellegrino on a similar subject before, and it sounded one-sided.)
Sorry for bringing up too much politics into the subject.
Meh, this is an inherently political subject imho, full stop. International sport is political. Competing in a Russian uniform means something to Russia. Competing in an American uniform means something to America. I think it is blithe, bordering on willful blindness, to disregard that fact when we talk about this issue.
Your point about the general inclination of the podcast is probably fair. You are certainly correct that Pellegrino — a man who has in the past literally joined a Russian national team training group led by then-Russian coach Markus Cramer — is more sympathetic to Russia than many skiers are. I don’t personally think that that means that his opinion is invalid, nor that the podcast is hopefully biased. (Nor are you necessarily saying as much here.) But I think it is definitely fair to approach the source with that in mind.
All that said, there has been basically no reporting on what has been currently going on in Russia, and I do applaud the podcast episode for giving us a look at that.