LAUSANNE, Switzerland: The International Olympic Committee announced on Tuesday that Russians and Belarusians will not participate in the athlete parade during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics in July.
Instead, athletes from these nations who qualify for the Games will compete as independent athletes without their respective flags and anthems, a decision made in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
These athletes will be designated as individual neutral athletes (AINs), represented by a specially-created flag and an anthem without lyrics, according to the IOC. Although they won’t be part of the delegation parade, they will still have the opportunity to experience the event. IOC director James McLeod clarified that while they will attend the opening ceremony, they won’t participate in the parade along the river Seine with team boats.
Furthermore, the IOC outlined that athletes seeking eligibility will undergo vetting by a three-member panel to ensure compliance with the established criteria, barring those who actively support the conflict or have ties to military or security agencies.
The IOC anticipates approximately 36 Russian and 22 Belarusian athletes to qualify for Paris, a notable decrease compared to the 330-member Russian team at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, and Belarus’s 104-member team at the same Games.
