(Paris) The International Olympic Committee has authorized six additional Russians and two Belarusians to participate in the Paris Olympics (July 26–August 11), bringing their total number to 47, according to a third list expanded Friday to include judo and canoeing.
The IOC, which published a first list on June 15, before expanding it on Thursday, indicates that two Russians and two Belarusians are invited in canoeing and four Russians in judo.
For the moment, 20 of these 47 athletes have confirmed their presence, while many others have not yet made their response known, such as in tennis, where the Russians Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev, current N, have been invited. 5 and N.6 in the world, as well as, among women, the Russian Daria Kasatkina (N.14) and the Belarusians Victoria Azarenka (N.16) and Aryna Sabalenka (N.3), the latter having already announced that she wouldn’t go. The Russian Liudmila Samsonova (N.15) for her part declined the invitation.
The IOC, which initially banned athletes from the two countries after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has since organized their gradual return, under a neutral banner and under certain conditions.
To be invited to the Games, “neutral individual athletes” had to both overcome the obstacle of qualifications and a double check, by the international federations then the IOC, of their absence of active support for the war in Ukraine and of link with their country’s army.
The Olympic body must still update its list, as and when the final results of the qualifications come out: no athlete will be part of it since the World Athletics federation has maintained a total exclusion of Russians and Belarusians, while certain sports, like swimming, reintegrated them so late that their presence is uncertain.
Last March, the IOC expected 36 Russians and 22 Belarusians at the Paris Games “according to the most likely scenario”, and respectively 55 and 28 “at maximum”, i.e. a significantly sparser presence than during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. : the Russians were 330, while Belarus had qualified 104 athletes.
