Appeal Rejected, Russia May Miss Paris Olympics! Putin’s Latest Instructions

On February 25th, local time, Russian President Vladimir Putin directed the Russian Ministry of Sports and the Russian Olympic Committee to devise a plan for Russian athletes’ participation in the Paris Olympics.

Previously, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced that Russian and Belarusian athletes could only compete in individual events at the 2024 Paris Olympics under a neutral identity and are barred from participating in team events.

According to reports from Reference News citing AFP on February 23rd, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected Russia’s appeal against the IOC’s suspension of its membership on the same day. Moscow sharply criticized the decision to bar it from participating in this summer’s Paris Olympics as “discriminatory.”

The report stated that in October last year, the IOC suspended the membership of the Russian Olympic Committee due to Russia’s “recognition of illegally annexed territory,” thereby undermining the territorial integrity of Ukraine, a member state.

The CAS stated in its ruling: “The CAS panel responsible for this matter dismissed the appeal and confirmed the decision under dispute, finding that the IOC Executive Board did not violate the principles of legality, equality, predictability, or proportionality.”

The IOC suspended the membership of the Russian Olympic Committee on October 12, 2023. A week prior to that, the Russian Olympic Committee decided to incorporate the sports organizations of regions under the jurisdiction of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine—Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia—into its own jurisdiction.

Upon the suspension, the Russian Olympic Committee condemned the action as “another counterproductive decision motivated by political reasons” made by the IOC.