World Aquatics is exploring a pathway for Russian and Belarusian athletes to return to aquatic competition as neutral athletes.
The World Aquatics Bureau met Wednesday and affirmed its support for the statement made by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last week in which the organization’s Executive Board issued a set of recommendations regarding a return for Russian and Belarusian athletes in international sport. This came after the majority of the IOC’s stakeholders requested that the committee begin exploring an avenue for Russian and Belarusian participation.
World Aquatics has established a task force to “explore a potential pathway for athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport to participate in future international aquatics events as individual neutral athletes.”
Although this isn’t specifically geared towards the Paris 2024 Olympics—the IOC has been adamant that a decision on that will not be rushed—this will open the door for Russian and Belarusian participation at the Games as they’ll need to compete in sanctioned qualifying competitions if they are to do so.
World Aquatics’ task force will be chaired by Maureen Croes, the President of PanAm Aquatics, and consists of athletes and representatives from the aquatics community.
“The World Aquatics Bureau notes that the task force will need to take time to come to its conclusions, and will report back at the next Bureau meeting in July 2023,” the global governing body said Wednesday.
WORLD AQUATICS PREVIOUS DECISIONS RE: WAR IN UKRAINE
- March 8, 2022 – World Aquatics (then FINA) passed a bylaw that would allow it to review the participation of athletes and officials at its events on a case-by-case basis in emergency situations.
- March 23, 2022 – World Aquatics bans Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing at the 2022 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest.
- April 21, 2022 – World Aquatics gives Russian Olympic gold medalist Evgeny Rylov a nine-month suspension after he appeared at a pro-war rally in Moscow. The organization also confirmed that Russian and Belarusian athletes would not be eligible to compete in any World Aquatics events through the end of 2022.
- December 29, 2022 – World Aquatics tells SwimSwam there are “no updates” on the status of Russian and Belarusian athletes heading into 2023, implying that the athletes remained banned from competition indefinitely.
- January 20, 2023 – Rylov’s separate suspension comes to an end.
In its press release on Wednesday, World Aquatics confirmed its ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes remains in place.
“The World Aquatics Bureau’s decision to not invite athletes and officials from Russia and Belarus to World Aquatics events remains in effect today.”
Two of the recommendations issued by the IOC for a return to competition were the following:
- “Athletes who actively support the war cannot compete. Support personnel who actively support the war cannot be entered.”
- “Athletes who are contracted to the Russian or Belarusian military or national security agencies cannot compete. Support personnel who are contracted to the Russian or Belarusian military or national security agencies cannot be entered.”
Given Rylov’s involvement in the pro-war rally last year, and the fact that he’s worked as a staff sergeant in the Moscow Oblast Police in Lobnya, would seemingly make him ineligible under the guidelines, along with many of Russia’s medal-contending athletes. Inside The Games previously reported that nearly half of Russia’s 71 medals at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics were won by members of military and law enforcement agencies.
World Aquatics reaffirmed its commitment to Ukrainian athletes and said it will “continue to prioritize measures aimed at supporting the Ukrainian aquatics community, alongside national swimming federations, National Olympic Committees, the International Olympic Committee and LEN.”
Last week, the Ukrainian government announced that it would boycott any Olympic qualifying events for the Paris 2024 Games where Russians were competing.
As of Tuesday, the United Nations has confirmed more than 8,451 civilian deaths and 14,156 civilian injuries in Ukraine since the onset of the invasion, though they also said that the death toll is likely higher.
Anyone have a link to the names of the World Aquatics Members who are part of the taskforce exploring this?
Let me guess, highly esteemed individuals with great ethical records such as Jihong Zhou and Sam Ramsamy?
I am sure that WA will allow Russians back in as Captain Corruption (FINA President) wants that Russian money. He is not interested in Ukrainian suffering.
The thought of Zhou Jihong being part of a credible taskforce made me LOL 😂
The diving community would vomit if she is involved
Look how important this s for Russian government to push and to pull all string possible to get their athletes competing at international stages. That is what is so sensitive for general population of Russian Federation and that is what they won’t forgive their government for. And don’t tell me after that that sport is apolitical that athletes are just an innocent peaceful lambs who wants nothing else in life but just to compete in fair competition. They are deserved to be punish as somebody who let criminal government to rule their country and being efficient tools in the government’s hands to stay in power.
How could be even possible that Fina is going to discuss about this topic. Russian and Belarusian shouldn’t be allowed because they violated human rights and most importantly they have huge issues with doping with a lot of warnings and with very bad track records with drugs cheaters.
Fina has to figure out how to ban Russian and Belarusian forever, full stop
These geniuses know they already were “the ROC” before, right? And that was just another name for “Russian”?
This would do the exact same thing.
Just a reminder that this a bureaucracy which is navigating an international geopolitical tightrope. No matter how right it may be, no official is going to morally grandstand so a few swimswam commentators are satisfied while they jeopardize their position and accomplish nothing.
I’m pretty sure we’re heading towards there being some form of Russian representation in Paris next year. However in response to that Ukraine can be expected to boycott, which I think could have the potential to become a PR nightmare for the IOC if mainstream press coverage chooses to highlight it.
The boycott would be a lot more extensive than that. One of the top track and field podcasters said the other day that he believes as many as 24 European nations would boycott. He said the boycott would be well organized and financed, that Thomas Bach is playing in a mine field that is above his pay grade, without realizing it. He said Bach on his way to sabotaging the Paris Games, weakening the Olympic movement, and making that his legacy, largely because he doesn’t rely on advisors for clarity, unlike previous IOC presidents.
The naïveté of the IOC and World Aquatics regarding how functionally pointless “neutral” participation is is just staggering. If anyone believes that Russian and Belorussian media wouldn’t simply promote their athletes, count medals as their own in media, and hold them up as heroes regardless of the presence of a flag on their uniform, is diluted.
Make no mistake, this does punish individual athletes, but unfortunately they are choosing to continue to want to represent these countries. That is their decision. And people are responsible for their “democratically” elected leaders.
Your country started and facilitated an invasion of another sovereign country under false pretenses. You do not get to play with the rest of the world. There are incredibly… Read more »
That’s a no from me, dawg
Booooo, boycott fina!
This comment is going to get me an email reminding me that they’re no longer called FINA.
Fina trying to change their name so the first thing we think isn’t corruption smh.
With such a corrupt president nobody is fooled.
Even more fun, we’re only gonna call em FINA down here.
And that means they see all my comments calling them morons. Double success!
I am always curious to think which esteemed members of FINA troll through the comments on SwimSwam. I bet Nowicki is here.
Nowicki sometimes even like FINA’s own Facebook posts with his own private account. I bet he comes on here