The International Paralympic Committee said on Wednesday that Russian and Belarusian athletes will compete when the Games open in Beijing on Friday, despite near worldwide pressure for Russia and its allies to face harsher punishments for the ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
Athletes affected by the decision, including 71 from Russia and 12 from Belarus, will compete as neutral athletes and any medals they do win will not be counted in the medal table. Instead of competing under their home country's flag, each of the athletes will do so under the Paralympic flag, and they will be ordered to cover any flags or logos on their uniforms that identify them as being from Russia or Belarus.
"The IPC and wider Paralympic Movement is greatly concerned by the gross violation of the Olympic Truce by the Russian and Belarusian governments in the days before the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games," Andrew Parsons, president of the IPC, said in a statement. "The IPC Governing Board is united in its condemnation of these actions and was in agreement that they cannot go unnoticed or unaddressed."
The actions taken by the IPC's executive board, which is responsible for organizing the Games, are largely similar to those already in place against Russia after its extensive state-sponsored doping scheme. During the most recent Winter Games, athletes from Russia competed under the banner of ROC, representing the Russian Olympic Committee.
The similarity was noted by Ukrainian athletes in a statement denouncing the decision.
"The IPC claims they are acting by forcing Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under a neutral flag," the statement said. "But the Russian flag was already prohibited from the Paralympics as punishment for a decade of state-sponsored doping and data manipulation. With or without a neutral label, the Russian and Belarusian authorities will use their athlete's participation in these Games as state propaganda."
The IPC's decision on these sanctions, the governing body said, was guided by its need to work within the framework of its own rules and regulations and was the "harshest possible punishment" it could hand down.
Currently, under those rules, an IPC member does not have to guarantee its compliance with the Olympic Truce, the tradition dating back to ancient Greece that ensures athletes and spectators could travel safely to the Games and peacefully return to their respective countries. Because of that, the board said, Russia and Belarus had not broken any Olympic-specific rules.
Those rules, though, could be revised.
"Post-Beijing 2022, we will also take measures with our 206 member organisations to determine whether any breaches of the Olympic Truce for future Paralympic Games could lead to the possible suspension or termination of an NPC," Parsons said.
The timeline for when such a change could come into effect is less clear. Under the IPC's constitution, six months' notice must be given before an "Extraordinary IPC General Assembly" can take place. The IPC said it would take place at some point in 2022.
Russia and Belarus, which has supported the invasion, continuing to participate in the Paralympics comes despite an open letter from Ukrainian athletes calling for the two countries to be banned from international sport. The letter cited a “clear breach of the Olympic and Paralympic Charters” that “must be met with strong sanctions.”
The IPC's ruling was less severe than those levied by other sports organizations this week. FIFA, the governing body for soccer, and the International Ice Hockey Federation both suspended Russian teams until further notice, while domestic leagues such as the NHL halted all business relationships with Russian companies.
"Today's decision from the IPC provides another example of the stranglehold the IOC has over the IPC," the Ukrainian athletes' statement said. "The IOC influenced the IPC decision to allow Russia back from institutionalized doping, and it has influenced today's decision as well.
"On Monday, the IOC failed to suspend the Russian and Belarusian National Olympic committees. Today, the IPC does the same. Both the IOC and IPC continue to choose politics over principle and Russian interests over athletes' interest."
The International Olympic Committee was among the first to weigh in on Russian and Belarusian participation this week, recommending that athletes from the countries be barred from international events, though it stopped short of issuing an outright ban themselves and acknowledged that individual event organizers and sport federations would have to reach their own decisions about how – or if – they would implement the recommendation.
The Canadian Paralympic Committee, for its part, said on Wednesday it believed athletes from Russia and Belarus should not be allowed to participate in the 2022 Games.
With the IPC's decision made, attention will turn to the Opening Ceremony on Friday, which could now be a stage for protest as Russian and Belarusian athletes attend alongside a delegation of 20 Ukrainian athletes.
"Make no mistake, sport is politics," the Ukrainian athletes wrote. "(Russian president Vladimir) Putin has consistently used the Olympic and Paralympic games to advance his domestic and international agendas. Many Russian Olympic and Paralympic Committee athletes are members of the Russian military.
"Sport administrators' claims of 'political neutrality' are a convenient lie used to deflect calls to stand up for human rights and peace."
