The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced that athletes from Russia and Belarus will not take part in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

This is despite athletes from the two countries having genuine passports to enable them participate in the games scheduled for 26 July 2024 –11 August 2024.

However, it is yet to be established whether they will also be denied participation during the closing ceremony of the global showpiece.

According to the IOC, athletes from these two countries were banned following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Athletes from the two countries will not be representing their countries in the games, they will be neutral athletes.

The terms and conditions for these athletes to participate in the summer games includes competing without flags, anthems, and emblems from their countries.

As of now, 12 athletes with the Russian passport and 7 with the Belarusian passport have qualified to participate as neutral athletes at the 2024 Paris Olympics out of the 6000 quota places already awarded.

The IOC has also raised concerns over Russia’s attempt to violet the Olympic Charter by planning to host a ‘Friendship Games’ in September, a move that the body sees as an attempt to politicise sports.

“To make their purely political motivation even more obvious, they are deliberately circumventing the sports organisations in their target countries.

“This is a blatant violation of the Olympic Charter and an infringement of the various UN resolutions at the same time. It is a cynical attempt by the Russian Federation to politicise sport,” stated the IOC as reported by the BBC.

The first Friendship Games were organised by the Soviet Union and eight other countries after they boycotted the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.