MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/. The recently made decisions by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) regarding the participation of Russian athletes in the 2024 Olympics in Paris are illegal, unjust and unacceptable, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

"The decisions made by the IOC are illegal, unjust and unacceptable," she said. "We are outraged by the unprecedented discriminatory conditions imposed by the International Olympic Committee on Russian athletes, who must compete in an individual, this so-called ‘neutral status’ and who are in fact forced to renounce any association with their homeland, with their citizenship, with their history, culture, with their people."

Having resorted to such decisions, Zakhrarova continued, the IOC "is splitting and politicizing the international sports movement, being on the leash of certain countries and effectively serving as a tool for unfair competitions."

"Our country stands for the consistent development of international sports cooperation based on the principles of equality and non-discrimination in order to provide everyone, without exception, the right to equal access to sports tournaments," she added.

The International Olympic Committee Executive Board convened for a meeting at the Olympic House in Lausanne, Switzerland, on March 19-20 and following its opening day on Tuesday it decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in the Parade of Athletes and also excluded them from the 2024 Olympics overall medal standings.

The IOC, however, ruled that Russian athletes, cleared to participate in the upcoming Olympics, would not be forced to sign documents denouncing their country’s special military operation in Ukraine.

The 2024 Summer Olympic Games will be hosted by the French capital of Paris between July 26 and August 11.

On October 12, 2023, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) until further notice after the Russian organization included the Olympic councils of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions as its members.

The Swiss-based CAS registered on November 6, 2023 an appeal from the ROC against the IOC’s decision on the Russian governing Olympic body’s suspension.

The suspension means that the ROC cannot act as a national Olympic committee or receive financing from the Olympic movement. The IOC however reserved the right to clear Russian athletes to take part in the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 as neutrals. Later, IOC President Thomas Bach said that Russian athletes should have no affiliation with the ROC if they want to compete at the Olympic Games.