The World Triathlon Federation will follow the recommendation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to reintegrate the Russian and Belarusian athletes.
As the Executive Committee of World Triathlon decided on Thursday, “independent neutral athletes with Russian and Belarusian passports” and officials from both countries should be allowed to participate in the sport again.
Association terminates “Verification Process” for neutral status
In the next step, an independent review process is being developed, which the athletes concerned must go through before returning to competition. The independence of each athlete or official is an “absolute requirement” for participation in a World Triathlon event, the press release said. In the triathlon, the Russian and Belarusian athletes have been excluded since March 2022.
So far, the sports federations have taken different approaches: the World Fencing Federation, for example, supports the return of “neutral” athletes from Russia and Belarus, while the World Athletics Federation maintains the exclusion.
Criticism of the IOC recommendation
There is a lot of criticism of the IOC’s recommendation. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is continuing the war against Ukraine with undiminished severity, and there has been no change in the situation in this regard since the beginning of the war. Again and again, Putin made sport part of his propaganda. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) threatened Russian athletes with an entry ban.