MOSCOW, May 16. /TASS/. The Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) has received a letter of confirmation from the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) on Russia’s membership reinstatement with the global body, RPC President Pavel Rozhkov told TASS on Tuesday.
The Russian Paralympic Committee’s news service announced last Friday that the Appeals Tribunal of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) had met an appeal from the RPC against its membership’s suspension with the global organization.
"The International Paralympic Committee sent to the RPC a letter of confirmation on the reinstatement of its membership in the [international] organization in line with the decision of the Appeals Tribunal," Rozhkov stated.
"The letter also contains preliminary information about the [IPC] General Assembly, which is scheduled to be hosted by Bahrain in late September, as well as the guidelines for submitting proposals on the agenda of the [General Assembly’s] meeting," the RPC president added.
On November 16, 2022, the IPC Extraordinary General Assembly voted to suspend the RPC’s membership with the organization. The Russian Paralympic Committee filed a motion on December 26, 2022 against the IPC General Assembly’s ruling to suspend indefinitely Russian Para-athletes from international sports tournaments.
Russian Para-athletes were set to take part in the Beijing Paralympics in 2022 but the IPC decided to suspend them due to the situation in Ukraine. The IPC earlier temporarily suspended the RPC in August 2016 amid a doping scandal in Russian sports.
In 2019, the IPC restored the RPC’s membership on certain terms that Russia would be compelled to fulfill by December 31, 2022. Russian para-athletes were able to compete in the Tokyo Summer Paralympic Games in 2021 based on that decision.
RPC ongoing spat with IPC
On August 7, 2016, the International Paralympic committee (the IPC) decided to bar the entire Russian team from taking part in the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on August 23, 2016 upheld the IPC’s ruling that came on the heels of a report delivered a month earlier by the WADA Independent Commission, chaired by Canadian sports law professor Richard McLaren.
Besides collectively punishing the Russian national team by banning it from the Rio Games, the IPC also decided to suspend the RPC’s membership in the international organization.
However, the team of Russian athletes, led by Rozhkov, was allowed to participate in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where it finished in 4th place in the overall medals standings among the rest of the national participants.
Para athletes from Russia also participated in the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in South Korea’s PyeongChang on a neutral status, dubbed as the Neutral Paralympic Athletes (NPA), as the RPC’s membership with the IPC (the International Paralympic Committee) was suspended at that time.
Russia’s so-called ‘neutral’ team of Para athletes brought home a total of 24 medals from PyeongChang, including eight gold, 10 silver and six bronze, ranking second in the overall medal count at the 2018 PyeongChang Paralympics, after the national team of the United States.