Russian and Belarusian athletes will not participate in the parade of athletes at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics in July, as announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Tuesday.
Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, athletes from these countries who qualify for the Games will compete as independents without their flags and anthems.
The opening ceremony, staged on the Seine River, will feature teams floating past an estimated 300,000 spectators.
The Russian and Belarusian athletes, competing as individual neutral athletes (AINs), will not be part of this parade.
They will instead compete under a specially created flag and with an anthem without lyrics produced by the IOC.
"They will not participate in the parade of delegations during the opening ceremony since they are individual athletes," the Olympic body said following an executive board meeting.
But it said they would experience all other parts of the opening ceremony besides the team parade.
"This decision is the logical consequence of the fact that the athletes with Russian and Belarusian passports are not selected as delegations but as individual athletes," Paris 2024 Games organizers said in a statement following the IOC decision.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who has long opposed a Russian presence at the Paris Olympics, welcomed the decision.
"I take note of the IOC's responsible decision regarding the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. This decision is a step in the right direction," she said to Reuters.
"For my part, I have always held a very clear position on the subject, refusing to allow Russian athletes to attend the Olympic Games since the beginning of the conflict.
"As I had the opportunity to say to the Kyiv City Council in February 2023, as long as Russian forces continue to bomb Ukraine, to target civilian populations, as long as Russian soldiers occupy this territory, I do not want Russian athletes to take part in sporting events. Paris will always stand by the Ukrainian people."
The IOC said those athletes who qualify will then be vetted by a three-member IOC panel to meet the eligibility criteria established by the Olympic body for Russians and Belarusians.
The panel is headed by IOC Vice President Nicole Hoevertsz and includes ex-NBA basketball champion Pau Gasol and South Korean former Olympic table tennis champion Ryu Seung-min.
Athletes who actively support the war, which Moscow calls a "special military operation," or are contracted to the military or security agencies will not be allowed to take part.
The IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee in October for recognizing regional Olympic councils for Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine – Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Earlier on Tuesday, the IOC criticized Russia's plans to host its own "Friendship Games" later in 2024, saying it would politicize sport and violate the Olympic Charter.
The IOC said an estimated 36 Russian and 22 Belarusian athletes are expected to cut Paris, compared to the Russian team of 330 at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Belarus had a team of 104 at those Games.
