Timeline

The AIN emblem assigned by the IOC

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, its third violation of the Olympic Truce, the IOC banned Russia and Belarus^{[lower-alpha 1]} and recommended that other international sporting organizers do the same on 28 February 2022.^[4] Accordingly, Russian and Belarusian athletes were banned from the 2022 Winter Paralympics.

On 25 January 2023, the IOC published a statement supporting the idea that Russian and Belarusian athletes could be allowed to compete as neutrals, as long as they did not "actively" support the war and as long as Russian and Belarusian flags, anthems, colors, and names were disallowed (thus banning the alternate designations used by Russia in 2018 and 2020).^[5]

On 28 March 2023, the IOC introduced the AIN name and narrowed the requirements down to individual athletes, disallowing any teams of Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing. For events organized by international federations other than the IOC, the IOC recommended to use no flag at all (or if not possible, the event's flag, the IF's flag, or the letters "AIN") and the event's anthem or the IF's anthem.^[6] Federations that did not have French as an official language still used the AIN name.^[7] The IOC also donated $5 million (USD) to the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine.^[8]

On 22 September 2023, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) banned the Russian flag and anthem from international sporting events for a second time^{[lower-alpha 2]} due to Russian legislation and RUSADA failing to comply with the World Anti-Doping Code, overlapping with the Olympic Truce ban. WADA announced that the ban would not be lifted until "the non-conformities related to national legislation are corrected in full."^[9][10]

On 12 October 2023, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee until further notice, overlapping with the other two bans, due to its violation of the Olympic Charter due to annexing the Olympic Councils of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk into the Russian Olympic Committee.^[11][12][13] The Russian Olympic Committee responded that the IOC had not issued a similar suspension after the Russian Olympic Committee annexed a sporting entity in Crimea in 2014, to which the IOC replied "this argument was a little bit, 'Why did you not sanction us already, earlier?'"^[14]

On 8 December 2023, the IOC published the AIN flag, officially stated that it would apply to the Paris 2024 games, and stipulated that official medal tables and tallies would exclude any AIN collective results.

Controversy

Ukrainian officials have criticized the IOC for not banning Russia despite it thrice violating the Olympic Truce, while others have alternately criticized the IOC for applying rules against Russia that do not get applied against other countries.

In particular, the requirement that athletes must not actively support the war has been described as "ineffectual". For example, Russian IOC member Yelena Isinbayeva was cleared as "not linked with the Russian military and not supporting the invasion", despite being pictured in military uniform and receiving military promotions, and despite pro-Russian citizens expressing anger at Isinbayeva after she claimed in defense that she had "never been in the service of the armed forces".^[14]

A compromise suggestion by Poland, where Russians and Belarusians could compete if they were dissidents, was not acted upon by the IOC.^[15]

An argument by the IOC that Russia should not be punished any more harshly than FR Yugoslavia in 1992 has been called deceptive by Ukraine. The IOC has compared Russia to FR Yugoslavia in 1992, arguing that FR Yugoslavia was allowed to compete as neutrals despite being under internationally binding United Nations sanctions, therefore Russia (which is not under internationally binding sanctions) should be allowed to compete as neutrals. Ukraine counters that FR Yugoslavia did not break the Olympic Truce, and that Russia has the power to veto its own sanctions at the United Nations. Ukraine also counters that apartheid South Africa was banned outright from the Olympics for 28 years with no complaint from the IOC about banning athletes "because of their passport".^[16]

Ukraine has also called deceptive the IOC statement that it should not act on the Russian invasion of Ukraine any differently from other ongoing armed conflicts. The IOC argues that other ongoing armed conflicts have not seen their belligerents banned from the Olympics; in response, Ukraine has countered that almost all of the ones listed by the IOC do not involve two different nations as belligerents, and of the ones that do, none have broken the Olympic Truce except Russia.

Conversely, political professor Jules Boykoff has stated that Israel's annexations of Palestine's territory violate the Olympic Charter in the same way as Russia.^[17]

Road

Three Individual Neutral Athletes qualified as riders for the road race events after securing the quotas through the UCI Nation Ranking.^[18]