MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/. The swimming body of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has allotted 42 spots for Russian Para swimmers in the 2024 Summer Paralympic Games, Pavel Rozhkov, the president of the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC), told TASS on Tuesday.
"The RPC received a notification about the IPC swimming committee’s decision to provide 42 spots for Russian swimmers at the Paralympic Games in Paris - 21 in women’s individual events and 21 in men’s events," Rozhkov said.
"The quota is based on athletes’ results in IPC-sanctioned events, including in Russia within the framework of the ‘We Are Together: Sport’ summer competition, Russian championships and all-Russia tournaments," the RPC chief continued.
"The announced quota was granted under the condition that individual athletes fully comply with the requirements regarding the neutral-status athletes and their accompanying staff," Rozhkov noted.
"The closest [Paralympic] qualifying tournament is the World Series in Australia on February 23-25. Five Russian swimmers are set to take part in this tournament," he said.
"Over 40 [Russian] swimmers want to participate in the [2024 Para Swimming] European Open Championship, which will be hosted by Portugal on April 21-27. Participation in this competition is obligatory in order to qualify for the 2024 Paralympics," Rozhkov added.
The IPC General Assembly ruled at its session on September 29, 2023 in Bahrain to suspend some of the rights the RPC has within the global organization.
However, the IPC General Assembly cleared Russian athletes to participate under a neutral status in international competition, including in the 2024 Summer Paralympics, which will be held in Paris between August 28 and September 8.
RPC’s ongoing spat with IPC
On August 7, 2016, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) decided to bar the entire Russian team from taking part in the 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on August 23, 2016 upheld the IPC’s ruling that had come on the heels of a report delivered a month earlier by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Independent Commission, chaired by Canadian sports law professor Richard McLaren, which substantiated doping allegations involving Russian Paralympians.
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 RPC head Pavel 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 PyeongChang, South Korea, with a neutral status, dubbed as the Neutral Paralympic Athletes (NPA), given that the RPC’s membership in the IPC was still suspended at the 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 only the US national team.