BELOVO /Kemerovo Region/, August 16. /TASS/. Some 300 people have been listed on a preliminary basis to be included in Russia’s delegation to the 2024 Summer Paralympic Games in France, Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) President Pavel Rozhkov told TASS on Wednesday.
The Organizing Committee of the 2024 Paralympics in Paris earlier sent a letter to the RPC asking it to provide information about the preliminary number of persons making up the Russian delegation at next year’s tournament.
"We have sent an application with our forecast that factors in all present-day criteria," Rozhkov said. "Our preliminary list of delegation members includes some 300 people."
"We have not listed representatives of team sports events such as Wheelchair Basketball, Sitting Volleyball, and Wheelchair Rugby, as well as team disciplines in swimming and athletics, Boccia and other sports competitions," the RPC president clarified.
Some 40 Russian Para-athletes have already qualified for the 2024 Paris Paralympics following the summer Paralympic swimming tournament in Dzerzhinsk, Nizhny Novgorod Region. Forty more track and field athletes will be selected based on the results of the Russian summer Paralympics tournament in the Chuvashia Region.
The 2024 Summer Paralympic Games will be held in the French capital of Paris between August 28 and September 8. The issue of Russia’s participation in next year’s Paralympics will be discussed at the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) General Assembly meeting on September 27.
Russian Para-athletes had been set to take part in the Beijing Paralympics in 2022 until the IPC decided to suspend their participation due to Russia’s involvement in the ongoing developments in Ukraine.
On November 16, 2022, the IPC Extraordinary General Assembly voted to suspend the Russian Paralympic Committee’s membership in the organization. The RPC filed a motion on December 26, 2022 contesting the IPC General Assembly’s ruling to indefinitely suspend Russian Para-athletes from competing in international sports tournaments.
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.