MOSCOW, October 14. /TASS/. The International Canoe Federation (ICF) granted neutral status to 20 Russian athletes in September, according to documents made available to TASS.

The neutral status was obtained by Ilya Bazarov, Vasily Berendyaev, Sergey Bochkov, Victoria Druzhinina, Yevgeny Kadlubinsky, Irina Kargina, Olga Kasyanova, Anatoly Matveyev, Yegor Mizonov, Sofia Panova, Alexander Polskoy, Yevgeny Savinov, Nika Sekisova, Denis Shatravin, Alexander Shivshov, Alexander Sukhanov, Pavel Tyrenko, Pavel Veremeyenko, Alexander Vidakov and Kirill Zavrazhin.

Overall, the ICF granted neutral status to more than 500 athletes from Russia and Belarus over the past two years.

In April 2023, the ICF board has made the decision to allow eligible Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as individual neutral athletes. It also set up an independent panel to consider all applications from Russian and Belarusian athletes wishing to compete as neutral athletes. The timeline for their inclusion in competition will be determined once this independent panel has established the rules and regulations required to consider athlete eligibility and following confirmation of anti-doping procedures by the International Testing Agency (ITA).