Madrid (EFE).- The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will not include Russia and Belarus in the list of invitations that it will send on July 26 to all the national Olympic committees (NOCs) in the world to participate in the Paris Games 2024.
Although athletes from both countries, who were sanctioned after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, have already returned to most competitions under a neutral flag, the IOC will make a decision “in due course” on their participation in the Games.
But given that the deadline for sending the invitations is the 26th, one year after the opening of the Games, the IOC will not yet send those of Russia and its ally Belarus, it reported Thursday.
The body chaired by the German Thomas Bach updated this Thursday on its website the guide on the situation in Russia and Belarus. After reviewing the already known positions of all the parties involved, in favor or against the readmission of athletes, the manual asks: ‘Will the Russian and Belarusian National Olympic Committees receive an invitation to the Paris Olympic Games when the invitations are sent out on July 26?’
“The current IOC recommendations for international federations and organizers of international sports competitions on the participation of athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports”, the IOC responds to itself, “do not refer to the participation of these athletes and their support personnel in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games or the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympic Games”.
“The IOC,” it adds, “will make this decision in due course, at its sole discretion, and without being conditioned by the results of the Olympic qualifying competitions.” In numerous Russian and Belarusian individual sports they are already scoring points for the Olympic rankings in the various qualifying competitions.
“Invitations to the 203 eligible NOCs will be sent on July 26, 2023. For the reasons stated, this will exclude NOCs from Russia and Belarus,” the IOC highlights.
The sending of invitations to the Games by the IOC is a protocol that is fulfilled one year after the inauguration of each Olympic edition. All the invited national committees have the obligation to participate in the Summer Games and otherwise implies a sanction, as happened to North Korea for not attending the Tokyo 2020 Games.
Guatemala, also without invitation
In its note on Russia and Belarus, the IOC adds that the Guatemalan Olympic Committee will not receive an invitation to Paris either, “which is suspended,” he recalls.
On June 21, the Executive of the organization decided to maintain the suspension that has weighed on the COG since October 2022, after appreciating that there had been no “progress” in their situation. It was the third time that the Olympic Executive opted to maintain the disqualification.
The origin of the sanction lies in the partial suspension of the COG statutes by the Constitutional Court of the Central American country, after a lawsuit filed by a candidate for the organization’s presidency.
As long as the COG statutes that were suspended by the Court are not restored, the athletes of the Central American country will not be able to compete with their flag or their anthem in international tournaments.
As neutrals they have just participated in the recent Central American and Caribbean Games.