MOSCOW, May 22. /TASS/. The Fencing Federation of Russia (FFR) has obtained from the International Fencing Federation (FIE) an updated list of Russian athletes, and accompanying staff, who have been granted neutral status in order to participate in international tournaments, the FFR’s press office announced on Monday.

The global fencing organization decided to grant neutral status to 17 Russian fencers and 12 staff specialists accompanying them.

The final list of eligible athletes, cleared by the FIE, does not feature the names of any medalists from the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Japan, where Russia’s national fencing team won three gold and four silver medals, and one bronze medal.

Some of the upcoming international tournaments in fencing have the status of the qualifiers for the 2024 Summer Olympics in France.

After Tokyo’s turn hosting the Olympic flame at the 2020 Summer Games, it will travel next to Paris for the Summer Games in 2024, and then to Los Angeles in 2028. In 2021, at the 138th IOC session in Tokyo, Brisbane, Australia, was selected to host the 2032 Summer Olympic Games.

FFR President Ilgar Mamedov announced on May 11, after receiving a preliminary list of cleared athletes for international fencing competitions, that the FIE had opted to bar several well-known Russian fencers from international tournaments, including Olympic champions Sofia Velikaya, Yana Yegoryan and Sofia Pozdnyakova.

Commenting earlier in the month on the FIE’s previous decision, Chairman of the State Duma (the lower house of the Russian parliament) Committee on Physical Culture and Sports Dmitry Svishchev, stated that: "Athletes of such caliber are the driving force of the sport of fencing… Such moves on behalf of the international federation [FIE] are a blow to the further development of the sport."

"It is not important who these athletes represent; what is important is that the decision is discriminatory," the Russian lawmaker added.

The FIE’s recent eligibility list also did not contain the names of Olympic women’s foil champion Inna Deriglazova, nor of Olympic champions in women’s team foil at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Adelina Zagidullina, Larisa Korobeinikova, and Marta Ulyanova, or that of the Olympic champion in the women’s sabre team competition, Olga Nikitina.

Russia’s 2020 Tokyo Olympics silver medalists in men’s team foil Anton Borodachyov, Kirill Borodachyov, Vladislav Mylnikov and Timur Safin were also excluded from the list of athletes allowed to participate in international tournaments under a neutral status. There were also no fencers on the list who are affiliated with Russia’s CSKA sports club.

The decision to green-light Russian and Belarusian athletes for participation in international fencing competitions was made on March 10 at an extraordinary congress of the FIE, which was held in an online format. In late March, the Ukrainian Fencing Federation (UFF) lodged an appeal with the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the FIE’s ruling.

At its session on January 25, 2023, the IOC Executive Board put forward a proposal to permit individual athletes from Russia and Belarus to take part in international sports tournaments, but only under certain conditions. Specifically, athletes from the two countries should not be "actively supporting" Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and must compete under a neutral status.

IOC’s ban on Russia’s international participation

On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.

Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.