MOSCOW, March 29. /TASS/. Russian tennis player Andrey Rublev sets sights on playing at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, in case he has no physical fitness problems before the Summer Games, the Russian said on Friday.
"If God wills and everything remains in its present-day situation meaning that we can play, while I'm physically fit and okay to play, it's very likely that I'll go [to Paris]," Rublev said in an interview with Russia’s Sport-Express daily.
"I will be certainly in the singles [competitions] and I don’t know about the rest of the [Russian] players, because we have not decided this issue as of yet," he added.
Rublev, 26, is ranked 6th in the ATP (the Association of Tennis Professionals) World Rankings and has won 15 ATP tournament titles. He has also appeared in numerous Grand Slam tournaments, albeit never advancing beyond the quarterfinals. Rublev took home the gold at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo in mixed doubles (with teammate Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova) and also won the 2021 Davis Cup as part of the Russian national team.
The 2024 Summer Olympic Games will be hosted by the French capital of Paris between July 26 and August 11.
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 the opening day it decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in the Parade of Athletes and also exclude 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.