IOC 'appear ready' to lift Russia Olympic ban with potential return date targeted
The IOC and other international sports bodies have banned all Russian athletes from competition.
Jack Kenmare
A new report has suggested that leaders of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are 'moving closer' to reinstating Russia and Belarus, with a potential return date for athletes being mentioned.
Within weeks of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the IOC and other major governing bodies moved to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competition.
The IOC has since allowed athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete as individual neutral athletes.
Three years on and the Russian and Belarusian national teams continue to be banned from competing under their national flag, although a number of high-profile figures have urged bodies to make a change.
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Back in November, the head of the Russian Olympic Committee, Mikhail Degtyarev, claimed that the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games will be the last Olympics in which Russians participate as neutrals.
"The Milan Games should effectively be the last time our athletes participate as neutrals," he said, as per Russian news agency TASS.
Earlier this month, the head of the International Ice Hockey Federation, Luc Tardif, said he would like Russia and Belarus to return to international competition "as soon as possible".
"We want as soon as possible Belarus and the Russians back," he said. "We try to see what's going on. Every day you watch the news to hope that something will come better."
IOC President Kirsty Coventry was recently asked when Russian athletes would be welcomed back to the international stage during an IOC press briefing. She suggested there was no timeline on the matter.
In an address to the IOC Congress in Milan this month, Coventry said: “We are a sports organisation. We understand politics and we know we don’t operate in a vacuum. But our game is sport."
She added: "That means keeping sport a neutral ground. A place where every athlete can compete freely, without being held back by the politics or divisions of their governments.”
With just a handful of days remaining of this year's Winter Olympics, a report from The Los Angeles Times suggests leaders of the IOC 'appear ready' to lift suspensions of Russia and Belarus.
This would reportedly 'clear the way' for athletes from those countries to return to major international competitions 'perhaps as early as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.'
The report also mentions Ukrainian skeleton slider Vladyslav Heraskevych, who was disqualified from the Milan-Cortina Games for refusing to compete without a helmet featuring images of people killed following Russia's invasion.
Earlier this month, Heraskevych took part in a training session while wearing a helmet that featured images of compatriots killed during the war in Ukraine.
The 27-year-old explained that many of those pictured on his helmet were athletes, including teenage weightlifter Alina Peregudova, ice hockey player Oleksiy Loginov and boxer Pavlo Ishchenko.
It is suggested that the plans to lift those previously mentioned suspensions 'may have hit a snag' following the show of support towards Heraskevych.
SPORTbible has reached out to the IOC for comment.