Russian athletes at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will not be able to represent their country even if a peace deal is reached with Ukraine, International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry said in an interview with an Italian newspaper.
At this stage, nothing would change the Committee’s decision to allow Russian athletes to compete in the February Games only as self-representing individuals, Coventry said. Corriere della Sera in an interview published Friday.
The IOC banned Russia and Belarus following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the IOC decided in September that Russians and Belarusians competing in Milan Cortina would do so as individual athletes, without a flag or national anthem.
In other remarks, Coventry – the IOC’s first female president – said holding the Olympics in multiple cities, as Italy does, would become “the new normal” and that the Milan Cortina Games would provide useful guidance for the future.
The IOC did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for confirmation of Coventry’s comments.
The Milano Cortina games take place from February 6 to 22.
