NO RUSSIANS AT 2026 WINTER OLYMPICS

IOC Confirms: No Russian Teams at 2026 Winter Olympics. There Is No Neutrality in War.

The Inter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) has reaf­firmed its deci­sion: Russ­ian teams will not be allowed to com­pete at the 2026 Win­ter Olympics in Milano-Corti­na. This includes the coun­try’s renowned nation­al ice hock­ey team.

The IOC clar­i­fied that “a group of Indi­vid­ual Neu­tral Ath­letes can­not be con­sid­ered a team,” effec­tive­ly bar­ring Rus­sia from enter­ing ath­letes under the guise of neu­tral­i­ty. The Inter­na­tion­al Ice Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion (IIHF) con­firmed that it will fol­low this rec­om­men­da­tion.

A small num­ber of rig­or­ous­ly vet­ted ath­letes with Russ­ian or Belaru­sian pass­ports may be allowed to com­pete in Paris 2024 under a strict neu­tral sta­tus, with­out nation­al flags, uni­forms, or anthems. All teams remain banned.

Impor­tant­ly, the IOC con­tin­ues to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between indi­vid­ual ath­letes and the states they rep­re­sent. Belarus, whose regime sup­ports and facil­i­tates Russia’s war, has also faced con­se­quences. The Belaru­sian regime allowed its ter­ri­to­ry to be used as a stag­ing ground for the inva­sion of Ukraine, mak­ing it com­plic­it in the war’s logis­tics.

In Octo­ber 2023, the IOC sus­pend­ed the Russ­ian Olympic Com­mit­tee for rec­og­niz­ing region­al Olympic coun­cils in Russ­ian-occu­pied parts of Ukraine. The IOC called this a clear vio­la­tion of the Olympic Char­ter, which rec­og­nizes the ter­ri­to­r­i­al integri­ty of Ukraine’s Nation­al Olympic Com­mit­tee.

The 2026 Win­ter Olympics will take place from Feb­ru­ary 6 to 22. Until then, the inter­na­tion­al sports com­mu­ni­ty must hold firm to a prin­ci­ple that remains non-nego­tiable: there is no neu­tral­i­ty in war.