Last week, the World Aquatics Integrity Unit released a list of eight approved neutral swimmers for the 2024 World Championships next month in Doha, Qatar. Only one Russian swimmer, Ivan Girev, has been approved so far.
Girev said his decision to apply for neutral status was entirely up to him, and that he has been celebrated — not shunned — for being approved as a neutral athlete in his circles.
“My personal ambitions influenced my decision (to apply for neutral status),” Girev told SwimSwam. “In summer 2023, I showed my best results, having COVID-19 shortly before the beginning. Then, unfortunately, our team was suspended from the Olympic Games in Paris.
“The Olympics aren’t just regular competitions,” added Girev, who won an Olympic silver medal swimming on Russia’s 4×200 freestyle relay in Tokyo. “It’s the worldwide event, which is remarkable to participate in. All athletes want to take part in it.
“This story is exactly about world swimming and my place in it. But I want to be with my team in Paris and embody the experience I’ve got in the past few years with them.”
Notably, neutral athletes will not have to sign a declaration condemning last year’s invasion of Ukraine. Instead, like all other athletes, they must reaffirm their commitment to respect the Olympic charter, including “the peace mission of the Olympic Movement.” In September, two-time Olympic champion swimmer Evgeny Rylov told Russian media that he’d refuse to sign a political declaration in exchange for a return to international competition.
Meanwhile, Russian Diving Federation chief Stanislav Druzhinen has joined the chorus of voices calling into question whether Russian athletes will compete at the Paris Olympics this summer as “neutrals.”
Druzhinen said the current International Olympic Committee (IOC) rules will have the effect of isolating Russian athletes and making them feel like “outcasts.”
“We do not fully know the conditions of admission, because athletes have to go there individually,” Druzhinen said. “Will they need to sign any papers, how to send doctors, masseurs with them?”
“The question is how they will be treated there: Will they feel like outcasts, sitting apart from everyone and not communicating with anyone? In my understanding, they will. International competitions have turned into politics, unfriendly countries are trying to prove something, infringing on the rights of our athletes, who just want to perform on equal terms with others.”
Druzhinen also took issue with the eligibility criteria laid out by the IOC and international diving federation, claiming that “99%” of elite Russian divers are members of Dynamo and CSKA sport clubs that are currently banned for being affiliated with “security agencies.”
“The athletes who took first place at the Russian Championship last year were selected for the World Aquatics Championships,” Druzhinen said. “At the same time, the eligibility criteria proposed by the International Olympic Committee and the International Federation say that only athletes who are not members of the Dynamo and CSKA societies and other organizations affiliated with security agencies can go to the competition.”
Russian divers captured one medal, a bronze, at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. They did not make the podium at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
“We have 99% of the athletes who could go to the World Championships in a neutral status who are members of those societies,” Druzhinen said. “And it makes no sense to send there people who took fifth or sixth place, because in this way we would violate the sports principle, and such a decision will not be understand by the guys who [should be] selected by right.”
The sentiments echo the opinion of Russian president Vladimir Putin, who said last month that the IOC’s conditions must be “thoroughly” analyzed before he could commit to sending neutral athletes to the Paris Olympics this summer.
As of last month, the IOC had approved just eight Russians and three Belarusians as neutral athletes for the Paris 2024 Olympics. They will not be allowed to compete under their national flag, hear their national anthem on the podium, or give interviews during Olympic media sessions as part of the IOC’s conditions.
Last October, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee indefinitely for recognizing sports organizations in four regions illegally annexed from Ukraine.
Lot of dreams crushed in 1980 . Let athletes perform in the biggest moment that they given all their lives to…. You can’t blame them for their government’s decisions ! Didn’t Rocky 4 teach us anything ! Jk , seriously tho I’m come here to see insane swims from around the country and world wide. Greed doesn’t limit it self to color ethnicity political affiliation. I’m still wondering what if the 2020 Olympics were in 2020 😢 what could have been for so many that got stifled and missed there chance
Maybe you shouldn’t invade anther country and kill 800,000 of their people. And isn’t this country caught doping virtually their entire team in an Olympics? Sorry if we can’t take you seriously. Watch Icarus!
So why is Israel allowed to compete?
The UK and the US were also just sued at the ICJ for their complicity helping Israel. Why stop at Israel?
Hamas Isis invaded Israel. Then israel responded. Definitely not the same
The original sin was committed in 1948 by Israel so you are wrong. 75 years of illegal occupation means Palestine is defending itself, as the ICJ just ruled.
Illegal occupation? Last time I checked Jews lived in that area for thousands of years alongside Christians and Muslims. If you’re trying to be smart make sure you get your facts checked.
The Canaanites were there before the Jews. Palestinians have a birth right to this land. Jews do not. As you remember from Hebrew school, the Torah forbids a Jewish state or nation. That’s why Rabbis around the world support Palestine and Judaism, not genocide via illegal Zionism. Look into it.
Funny that you mentioned the Torah, Hebrew school etc because if you *really* look into it, you will find that God promised this land to Abraham, who is the father of both Ishmael (the claimed ancestry of the Arabs) and Issac (the claimed ancestry of the Jews) but later only one son got the confirmation from God and guess who it was – that’s right. Issac and then another confirmation to his son Jacob!
The Torah never forbade a Jewish state or a nation. The reason some rabbis (not the majority!) don’t support Israel is because they seek to dismantle the secular state of Israel and live under a fully orthodox Jewish state.
And one more thing. Israel… Read more »
Canaanites were there before humans invented God and the bible.
The ICJ has ruled against Zionism’s current genocide. Next up, the ICJ will rule on Israel’s 75 year illegal occupation. Hard times for your moral low ground. Support Judaism because Zionism is Anti-Semitism.
oh great let’s ban Germany too for 1940’s whilst we are at it… Where do you start/stop = nonsense argument..
Genocide: the systematic extermination of a people
The ICJ found Israel is doing this now…14/16 seeing the case decided.
Because Israel is DEFENDING ITSELF. Let me correct you because I know listening to TikTok news is quite trendy lately. Why not ban Palestine from competing? We all saw the true intentions of their government on October 7th..
ah yes, Oct. 7th… the molly hitting Israeli EDM drug addicts as they’re dancing on colonized land next to a military base that exists for the sole purpose of keeping the ethnically cleansed natives pacified in their nearby Israel-created ghetto camp. Interesting you don’t talk about 1948 – Oct. 6th 2023 or the genocide after. If you are pro-Israel today you would have been pro Germany 1933-1945.
I don’t think Girev invaded another country or killed anyone.
…neither he condemned war
That’s not the point here.