VLADIVOSTOK, September 4. /TASS/. The Russian national Olympic team is preparing under the assumption that it will participate in full at the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in the United States, Russia’s top sports official Mikhail Degtyarev said on Thursday.
"We are preparing for full-fledged participation in the 2028 Olympic Games," Degtyarev, the Russian Sports Minister and the president of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), said speaking at the ‘Sports Diplomacy: New Challenges and Opportunities’ session held within the framework of the 2025 Eastern Economic Forum.
"We [Russia] will hold the 2nd Summer Spartakiad featuring our strongest athletes. There will be 9,000 of them there," he continued. "This is a domestic competition that will single out the best of the best."
"In other words, we will start selecting candidates for the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles," he added.
The 2028 Summer IOC Summer Olympic Games are slated to be hosted by the US city of Los Angeles between July 14 and 30. The previous edition of the IOC Summer Olympics was hosted by the French capital of Paris in 2024 between July 26 and August 11. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowed a team of 15 Russian athletes to participate in the 2024 Summer Olympics as neutrals.
The 10th Eastern Economic Forum is taking place in Vladivostok from September 3 to 6 under the theme "The Far East: Cooperation for Peace and Prosperity." The business program will feature more than 100 thematic sessions divided into seven tracks.
The forum is expected to bring together over 4,500 participants from more than 70 countries and territories. The Roscongress Foundation is the organizer of the EEF, with TASS as its general information partner.
IOC sanctions against Russia, Belarus
On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to prohibit athletes from Russia and Belarus from participating in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.
Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.
In late March, 2023, the IOC recommended allowing individual athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in international sports tournaments, but only under specific conditions. Specifically, athletes from the two countries should not be "actively supporting" Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and must compete under a neutral status. Russia and Belarus were also banned from participating in international team events.
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.