Olympic chiefs ban Russia — but door still open to Paris 2024 for athletes

The International Olympic Committee on Thursday banned the Russian Olympic Committee, effective immediately but it has not changed its position on the possibility of Russian athletes taking part in the Paris 2024 Olympics.

The IOC said in statement that Russia’s decision to claim regional sports organizations in occupied areas of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, areas which should be under the authority of Ukraine’s National Olympic Committee, as members was a breach of the Olympic Charter.

Because of the breach, the ROC is suspended “with immediate effect until further notice.”

As a consequence of the suspension, the Russian committee can’t operate as a National Olympic Committee and will not be able to receive any funding from the Olympic Movement.

The statement specifies that the IOC’s position on Russian athletes’ involvement in next year’s Paris 2024 Games remains fully in place. As per the committee’s recommendations from earlier this year, Russian and Belarusian athletes will be allowed to participate in the Games as long as they do so as so-called neutral athletes, without an accompanying national flag or anthem.

The Russian Olympic Committee on Thursday called the IOC’s suspension a “counterproductive decision with obvious political motivations.”