Considered a pariah in world sport for more than a decade, Russia will be represented by a small team of athletes at the 2026 Paralympic Games in Italy next month, organizers confirmed, drawing condemnation from European leaders on Wednesday.
The decision comes in the wake of growing acceptance among sports officials that Russia’s years-long Olympic ban should end and could pave the way for a Russian team to compete at the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics.
At the Paralympic Games, which will take place after the Winter Olympics conclude on Sunday, the Russian flag and anthem may be displayed for the first time since 2014, after the revelation of a widespread state-sanctioned doping scheme at the Winter Games prompted international sports federations to impose suspensions on Russian athletes.
These sanctions intensified as Russia tried to cover up the extent of the fraud and then, in 2022, launched its invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
The International Paralympic Committee announced on Tuesday that Russia and its ally Belarus, which supported the invasion of Ukraine, will be represented by athletes in the skiing events. Six athletes from Russia and four from Belarus will be able to compete, according to the committee, a decision that has drawn harsh criticism from Ukraine and its European allies.
“As long as Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine continues, I cannot support the reinstatement of national symbols, flags, anthems and uniforms that are inseparable from this conflict,” said Glenn Micallef, representative of the European Commission for Sport, in a post on social media, adding that he would not attend the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games as a sign of protest.
British Sports Minister Lisa Nandy said allowing athletes to “compete under their own flags while the brutal invasion of Ukraine continues sends a terrible message.”
Ukraine’s Sports Minister Matvii Bidnyi called the decision “outrageous” and said Ukrainian authorities would not travel to the Paralympic Games or participate in official events there.
The war in Ukraine has already become a point of tension at the Winter Games in Italy, where Russia is not officially represented, although 13 Russian athletes have been cleared to compete under “neutral” status.
Last week, a Ukrainian skeleton athlete was disqualified for planning to compete wearing a helmet honoring compatriots killed in the war. The International Olympic Committee said this violated its ban on political demonstrations during competitions.
The decision to allow Russian athletes to participate in the Paralympic Games was a surprise. The more than 200 members of the International Paralympic Committee voted last year to end the ban on Russian participation, but committee president Andrew Parsons had suggested this month that it was too late for Russian athletes to qualify for the competition. The hockey tournament, for example, had already defined the participating countries.
Decisions about which athletes can participate, however, are generally made by the federations that govern each sport, which gave Russian sports officials an opportunity.
In December, Russia successfully challenged a ban imposed by the ski federation at the highest court for sports disputes in Switzerland and requested the equivalent of “wild card” places for its athletes. These places, normally reserved for elite athletes who were unable to qualify due to unforeseen circumstances, such as injuries or pregnancy, are at the discretion of the federations and the Paralympic governing body. The ski federation then requested ten such places for Russian and Belarusian competitors.
The vote to reinstate Russia into the Paralympic Games came after some IPC members argued that the conditions that led to the original ban had changed. The ban resulted from evidence that Russia was using its participation in international events to promote war in Ukraine, including with athletes displaying symbols of the invasion, such as the letter Z, on uniforms and equipment.
Some sports federations, including curling and biathlon, maintain a ban on Russia’s participation. But positions among sports directors appear to have softened. Kirsty Coventry, president of the IOC, said this month that sport should be a “neutral ground”, separate from politics. Previously, the president of FIFA, world football’s highest governing body, said he would like to see Russia return to the sport’s international competitions.
The first sign of Russia’s return could come at the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Verona, Italy, on March 6. Each participating nation has the right to take two athletes and two leaders to the parade of nations, a moment of great national symbolism on the global stage. Russia has not yet confirmed its presence, an IPC spokesman said on Wednesday.
The Russian Olympic Committee remains banned from the Olympic Games due to the decision taken in 2023 to absorb sports institutions in several occupied Ukrainian regions. Russian officials say they have since reorganized the way they run the sport and are now in compliance with Olympic rules.
Russian Sports Minister Mikhail V. Degtyarev said he expects the IOC executive board to decide in April or May whether to lift the ban.
“If the IOC does not put our case on the table, of course we will go to court,” Degtyarev said, according to Championat, a Russian sports website.
