With the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris being a year and a half away, the games are facing some serious challenges. The controversy surrounding the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes have caused a heavy amount of debate with some national delegations such as Ukraine and Latvia threatening to even boycott the games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has stated that they wish to have these athletes compete as possible neutrals with no flag, no anthem, and no national colors yet they have also said that they will attempt to create a path for these athletes to come back if they denounce the war in Ukraine. 

Since February of 2022, Russia’s occupation of Ukraine has caused a major disruption in the sports world. They have been banned from major sporting events such as: the 2022 Winter Paralympics, the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and almost all other international sports competitions. However, now that a year has passed, and the Olympics being less than two years away, the IOC has taken extreme measures to find a way to let these athletes compete. Even the Asian federations have expressed their interest in letting Russian and Belarusian athletes compete with them, and not in Europe’s qualifying competitions. 

Even without the war scandal, Russia’s participation in the games have been criticized because of their world known doping scandal. They have not competed under their own flag since the 2016 Summer Olympics, and they were rocked by another doping scandal at last year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing where the 15-year old figure skater, Kamila Valieyva, was caught taking a performance enhancing substance. It caused outcry from many other national delegations even while they were under their current punishment from the IOC, and they still continued to dope their athletes.

With the addition of their occupation in Ukraine, many delegations have expressed their wish to not let them back in the games. Ukraine and Latvia, have already even threatened a boycott. If this were to happen, it would be the biggest Olympic boycott since the Soviet Union in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) has stated that they are open to having the Russian and Belarussian athletes come back, but they admit there are some heavy challenges to doing so. 

Some Ukrainian athletes have also directly stated that they do not want the Russian and Belarussian athletes back at the games. Meanwhile, some Ukrainian athletes have even been killed in the war. Ukrainian decathlete, Volodymyr Androshchuk, won’t ever get his shot at the games again because he was killed in battle. Ukrainian tennis star and the current bronze medalist, Elina Svitolina, has echoed a strong message to the IOC asking for these athletes to not be allowed back. 

“We must stick to banning Russian and Belarussian athletes. We are united in the sanctions imposed against Russia and Belarus and that there are consequences for the heinous acts of their governments. Their lives cannot continue as normal and the world, nor the Russian and Belarussian people, can be ignorant of the atrocities they are committing in Ukraine,” Svitolina said in an Instagram post. 

Very recently, Poland, one of Ukraine’s neighbors, has stated that they wish for the ban of the Russian and Belarussian athletes to continue. Poland has accepted the most Ukrainian refugees in the world after the war began. 

For Paris, the host city, this has been another difficult setback to relatively smooth sailing games so far. One of their biggest issues at the moment is that some of the steel that is needed to build the badminton and rhythmic gymnastics venue cannot be sent by Ukraine to France, therefore the building of that arena has been put on hold. While that doesn’t seem to be an alarming issue for the Paris games, it is another example of how this war is affecting the Olympics. 

With 540 days to go till the cauldron is lit at the Paris games, much is unknown about the participation of Russia and Belarus. Whether they compete or not, there will be no doubt that severe repercussions will occur. For now, the U.S. has remained fairly quiet on the subject, but we will all have to wait and see what events unfold, and what the IOC ultimately decides to do.