MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/. Russian sports officials should align themselves with the government’s stance regarding the participation of national athletes at the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, Mikhail Degtyarev, a candidate for the post of the Russian sports minister, said on Tuesday.

"Should our athletes participate in the [2024] Olympics? We will proceed from the stance assumed by the leadership of our country," he said addressing lawmakers of the Russian parliament’s lower house, the State Duma.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin nominated Mikhail Degtyarev, who has served as the governor of Russia’s Far Eastern Khabarovsk Territory since 2021, for the post of the country’s sports minister.

On May 12, the candidacy of Degtyarev was unanimously approved by members of the State Duma Committee on Physical Culture and Sports.

In mid-December 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during his combined Direct Line Q&A session and year-end press conference that recommendations regarding Russian athletes taking part in the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris must to be thoroughly analyzed and after considering everything, a decision regarding the country’s participation in the Olympics should follow.

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.