Russian and Belarusian athletes face prospect of ban at 2024 Summer Olympics

• Russian athletes have a long history of being excluded from international tournaments.
• Russians and Belarusian have been banned from participating in the 2024 Summer Olympics.
• World Athletics will decide how World Athletics will behave.

Russian athletes have a history of being excluded from international tournaments, and the possibility that they might face a ban from the 2024 Summer Olympics due to the invasion of Ukraine has added to their long history of dissatisfaction with international sports governing organizations.

There have been increasing calls to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing as neutrals at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris ever after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) granted their request.

Hurdler Sergey Shubenkov claimed he was avoiding reading the news regarding Russia’s Olympic chances on a track in northeastern Moscow on Friday.

“As an athlete, I devoted all of my life to this sport and always did my job,” said Shubenkov, the 2015 world champion in the 110m hurdles and a two-time Olympian. “And I’m being told now, ‘You’re a good guy but we don’t need you’.”

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The Lithuanian sports minister announced on Friday that a coalition of 35 nations, including the US, Germany, and Australia, will put more pressure on the IOC by calling for the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian competitors from the 2024 Olympics.

While the IOC has left it up to international federations to decide whether athletes from Russia and Belarus should be allowed a road to qualify, Ukraine and some of its allies have already threatened to boycott the Paris Games if Russian and Belarusian athletes compete.

“Much will depend on how World Athletics will behave,” Shubenkov said. “And there, of course, everything is not so rosy.”

Shubenkov was one of ten Russians chosen by World Athletics, the sport’s global governing organization, to compete at the Tokyo Olympics without the country’s flag or national anthem.

The action was conducted as a part of broader measures to punish the Russian Athletics Federation, which has been suspended since 2015 due to doping violations.

Maria Lasitskene, a high jumper, remarked when questioned about the possibility of not being able to defend her Olympic title, “It’s tough psychologically so I try to keep it together, train, compete, and jump.”

Irina Privalova, a four-time Olympic medalist, and former sprinter has been named the deputy director of the Russian athletics association. She has rejected the idea that dissident Russian athletes might be permitted to compete as refugees.

“Athletes and any Russian citizen who does not support the president’s (Vladimir Putin’s) decision should not represent the country,” she told the media.

“I think those who don’t support (Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine) have already left. The ones who remain are those who support it.”

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