MOSCOW, March 22. /TASS/. The world’s governing body of swimming sports, World Aquatics, will allow Russian athletes to take part in the upcoming international competition next month in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the organization’s press office announced to TASS in a statement on Friday.
The competition is slated to be held in the city of Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina in late April. Vladimir Salnikov, the president of the Russian Swimming Federation (RSF), said earlier that there would be no restrictions on Russia’s national swimmers at the event and they would be allowed to compete under the country's national flag and colors.
"This competition is not organized by World Aquatics," the statement reads. "The only Russian athletes who will be able to qualify for the Paris Olympic Games are those who are registered as Individual Neutral Athletes."
"Any Individual Neutral Athletes who compete at this event, or other events, would be able to set a qualifying time for Paris," the statement added.
The 2024 Summer Olympic Games will be hosted by the French capital of Paris between July 26 and August 11.
In March 2023, World Aquatics (FINA until December 2022) ruled to bar Russia and Belarus from any future FINA-sanctioned international swimming events. Prior to the World Aquatics ruling in March 2023, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations on February 28, 2022, to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments.
IOC’s regulations against Russia
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 have to sign anything denouncing their country’s special military operation in Ukraine.
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.