Russia will once again be kept out of the Olympic Games due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine, the International Olympic Committee announced Tuesday.
The nation will not be allowed to compete in the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics after the IOC said it is upholding its 2023 policy to prevent teams made up of athletes holding Russian or Belarusian passports. (Belarus is an ally of Russia and has served as a staging ground for its troops throughout the war.)
The IOC made its stance clear Tuesday in response to reports in Russia that hockey officials in the country had been in talks about the Olympics with the International Ice Hockey Federation.
“It is based on the fact that, by definition, a group of Individual Neutral Athletes cannot be considered a team,” the IOC said in a statement. “We take note that the IIHF has confirmed that it will follow this recommendation.”
Some Russian and Belarusian athletes, including four figure skaters approved by the International Skating Union last month, will be allowed to try to punch their ticket to the Games as neutral athletes, with no country affiliation or national anthem. This continues the IOC’s policy at the 2024 Summer Games, where a small group of Russian and Belarusian athletes were allowed to compete in individual events.
Athletes representing Russia and the Soviet Union have a long history of success at international competitions in winter sports such as hockey, figure skating, cross country skiing, speed skating, and the biathlon. The Russian men’s hockey team won gold in 2018 in Pyeongchang and silver in 2022 in Beijing. (The 2018 team competed as “Olympic Athletes from Russia” and the 2022 team was part of the “Russian Olympic Committee,” both workarounds for punishment Russia was receiving for its state-sponsored doping scheme.)
The IOC banned the Russian Olympic Committee in October 2023 after it recognized regional Olympic councils in Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, which the governing body said violated the integrity of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine and therefore breached the Olympic Charter. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 began just four days after the closing ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
