MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2022) The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is considering the pathway back in competition for Russian athletes as individual athletes should not be punished for governments' actions, Susanne Lyons, the chair of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), said on Thursday.
On Thursday, the head of the Commission of Athletes of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), fencer Sofya Velikaya, said that IOC President Thomas Bach, during a conference call with athletes, called the decision to suspend Russian athletes a dilemma and said that in the future the organization would decide how to resolve it.
"We know that the IOC is beginning to think about whether there is a pathway back for the Russian athletes. They are beginning to reach out to all of their stakeholders, including the NOCs (National Olympic Committees), the international federations, to get input on that topic. So, I don't think there any decisions have been made yet. But I think all of us feel it at some point in time the individual athletes should not be the victims of whatever their individual governments' political or other tensions are around the world. So, I think, inevitably, there will be a desire to see athletes who happen to reside in Russia come back and be part of competitions but the timing and what that pathway looks like is to be determined," Lyons told the USOPC's leadership press briefing following the board meeting via teleconference.
At the end of February, the IOC recommended that international sports federations not allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in competitions due to the situation in Ukraine. A number of federations have followed this recommendation.
