Advertisement

Paris 2024: Why Russia and Belarus are called Individual Neutral Athletes

caitie browne
Senior Video Producer

A small group of Russian and Belarus athletes will compete at the Paris Olympic Games but they won't be sporting their countries' flags, or singing their anthems, due to an IOC stance against both nations following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Video transcript

Athletes from Russia and Belarus are called individual neutral athletes at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Here's why a small group of Russian and Belarus athletes will compete at the Paris Olympic Games, but they won't be sporting their country's flags or singing their anthems due to an IOC stance against both nations following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Instead, they're competing as individual neutral athletes because Russia, Belarus are both banned from the Games by the International Olympic Committee.

Russia has been banned from the Olympics since 2017.

The decision was made by the IOC after it conducted an investigation that found proof of a state run doping programme with few Russian athletes untouched by the effects of performance enhancing drugs.

The ban was due to expire in 2022.

However, Russia then invaded Ukraine.

This was seen as a breach of the Olympic truce, which dates back to the ancient Olympic Games, Tom Heenan from Monash University told Yahoo News seven days before the opening ceremony and seven days after the closing ceremony and during the games there has to be peace and since the conflict continued throughout the Beijing Winter Games in 2022 the Olympic truce was broken and Russia's ban was extended.

There is currently no expiry on the ban is also banned from the Olympics as they've been a close ally of Vladimir Putin's government and therefore the IOC has condemned its involvement in the Russia Ukraine conflict.

This ban also has no set expiry date.

Individual neutral athletes wear neutral uniforms while competing and if triumphant, they stand on top of the medal podium while the Olympic anthem plays and the Olympic flag waves instead of their own national flags.