MOSCOW, March 6. /TASS/. A group of 12 Russian artistic gymnastics athletes, including Olympics champion Angelina Melnikova, was granted a neutral status permission to take part in international tournaments, the press office of the Russian Gymnastics Federation (RGF) said in a statement on Thursday.

The list of athletes allowed to participate neutrally at international tournaments in women’s category includes Angelina Melnikova, Maria Agafonova, Alyona Glotova, Anna Kalmykova, Zlata Osokina, Lyudmila Roshchina and Kseniya Zelyayeva.

The internationally approved list in men’s category holds names of Russia’s (two-time world champion) Daniel Marinov, Grigory Klimentyev, Vladislav Polyashov, Kirill Prokopyev and Ilya Zaika.

Russia’s Melnikova, 24, is the gold medal winner of the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo in the team event, in addition to bronze medals in all-around and floor exercise competitions at the Olympics in Tokyo. She is the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro silver medalist in team event.

Participating in the world championships, Melnikova is the 2021 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships gold medalist in all-around event and silver medalist in floor exercise.

The 2025 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships will be held in Jakarta, Indonesia, between October 19 and 25, 2025. Russian gymnasts appeared competing at the international arena last time back in the fall of 2021.

Russian and Belarusian gymnasts have been barred from international competition since March 2022 over the situation in Ukraine. In July 2023, the Executive Committee of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) allowed athletes from Russia and Belarus to take part in international events under a neutral status starting from January 1, 2024.

On November 10, 2023, the International Federation of Gymnastics (FIG) published a list of criteria for Russian athletes to take part in competitions supervised by the federation.

According to the published FIG criteria, only individual athletes will be allowed to compete internationally. Representatives of Russia and Belarus are prohibited from displaying any nation.