TRONDHEIM, NORWAY — On the eve of the first race at the Nordic World Ski Championships, an anonymous source told Swedish national broadcaster SVT that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has urged both the International Ski Federation (FIS) and the International Biathlon Union (IBU) to allow Russian and Belarussian athletes to return to international competition in time for the 2026 Olympic Games in Italy.
IBU President Olle Dahlin confirmed to SVT that the IOC is encouraging winter sport federations to adopt the same “Individual Neutral Athlete” (AIN) regime used at the Paris Olympics in 2024, which saw 15 Russian and 17 Belarussian athletes take part.
Dahlin, however, stated the IBU is not currently considering a Russian or Belarussian return to racing.
Meanwhile, FIS president Johan Eliasch—who is running to become the new IOC President in a vote later this month—is hopeful that athletes from Russia and Belarus will be back on the start line at the next Winter Olympics.
Both FIS and the IBU have instituted a ban on all Russian and Belarussian athletes and staff from international competition since March of 2022. This decision followed a stand-off between the Norwegian Ski Association—who refused to welcome Russian athletes to their events—and FIS, who initially insisted on Russian participation but changed course after the IOC recommended a ban.
The IOC did not make anyone available for an interview, but shared a written statement with FasterSkier which called on international sports federations and event organizers to adopt the Individual Neutral Athlete protocol in time for the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics.
In a telephone interview with FasterSkier, Eliasch said that the blanket ban on Russian athletes is unfair: “The athletes can’t choose where they were born,” the FIS president said, adding that he would like to see the Individual Neutral Athlete program carried forward to next year’s Games.
Eliasch emphasized that, in order to be invited to the Olympics as an AIN, “Athletes have to fulfill very clear criteria, and there is a process for vetting.” These criteria, based on recommendations from the IOC’s Ethics Board, exclude Russian and Belarussian athletes who are contracted by their nation’s military and security forces, as well as those athletes who actively support the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“It’s worked well,” said the president about the independent evaluation process, “So I fully support this program.”
Secretary general of the Ski Federation of Ukraine Julia Syparenko says that the AIN scheme has been less effective than Eliasch suggests: “There have been numerous cases where these so-called neutral athletes failed to meet the established requirements,” Syparenko said via email.
A 2024 investigation by Global Right Compliance found that two thirds of Russian athletes who had been invited by the IOC to participate at the Paris Olympics had in fact shown support for the invasion of Ukraine, often by “liking” pro-war posts on social media.
Syparenko was unable to provide exact numbers, but said that many former athletes from the Ski Federation of Ukraine currently serve in the military, and that some have been killed in the fighting. The British Government estimates that up until the Paris 2024 Olympics, 487 Ukrainian athletes had been killed in the war, and that roughly 4,000 Ukrainian athletes continue to serve in the war effort. Similar statistics are not available for Russian athletes.
Syparenko said that Russian attacks have destroyed homes and displaced athletes, coaches, and officials, and competitions can only be held in the west of the country — and only so long as there are bomb shelters in place. Previous reporting from FasterSkier has detailed the risks that Ukrainian athletes have had to face to pursue their sport, and the losses they’ve endured during the war.
According to Syparenko, the Individual Neutral Athlete scheme used at the Olympic Games was an inadequate response to the realities of the invasion: “In such questions as war one cannot be neutral,” she said. “Either you don’t support the war and you say it, or otherwise you support the war, saying nothing against it.”
When asked for comment, Nordiq Canada’s acting CEO Megan Begley reiterated the federation’s stated position from 2022, which reads: “Nordiq Canada and its national team athletes fully support the decision by FIS to immediately suspend Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials from participating in FIS-sanctioned competitions.”
U.S. Ski and Snowboard did not respond to an interview request.
Russian powerhouse Alexander Bolshunov had been the main challenger to Norwegian Johannes Høsflot Klæbo until Russia was excluded from all FIS competitions in March 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Bolshunov told the Russian website sports.ru in 2023 that he had no intention of returning to international racing following FIS’s ban. “Honestly,” he said, “I’m not interested in how these dirty competitions go.”
“I think it’s better to compete where we are expected,” Bolshunov said. “First you are disappointed, but now in Russia there are excellent competitions, broadcasts are organized, and you forget about it.”
But the nine-time Olympic medallist has since had a change of heart.
Last Friday, Bolshunov told the Russian outlet Match TV: “If there are no Olympics, why train and run? For all-Russian competitions? No, thank you.”
Bolshunov is a captain in the National Guard of Russia and has appeared on stage at public rallies in support of the Russian invasion.
Though he declined to comment on the situation of any particular athlete before they had undergone the vetting process, Eliasch confirmed that an athlete who had been contracted by a Russian national security agency or had participated in state propaganda “would not qualify under the AIN scheme.”
British skier James Clugnet — who is serving as an athlete representative to FIS — understands that his peers are divided on the subject of Russia’s return: “Over 50% of the athletes voted that they didn’t want the Russians to come back,” he said. “And 48% said that they were happy for the Russians to come back with conditions.”
Italian athlete Federico Pellegrino — who, in 2021 joined a Russian Ski Team training group led by coach Markus Cramer — is fed up with questions about the fate of his former training partners: “Again and again, always always. I say the same since four years.”
“In my opinion, sport must unite people, not divide, as it’s many times said in the North,” said the Italian sprint star. “I hope that the institution will do their job without the push from different things that are not right for the good of sport and, hopefully, for the end of the war.”
Canadian Katherine Stewart-Jones says that it is important for athletes to stay engaged in the debate surrounding the Russian situation: “We’re the ones that are living the consequences of the decision. So I think it is a fair question to ask.”
As for whether the Russians should be allowed back to FIS and IOC competitions — under a neutral flag or otherwise — Stewart-Jones is concerned that inviting Russian athletes back to racing at this stage would compromise the ethical principles of the Olympic Charter, which are supposed to ensure respectful and meaningful competition. “Sport should be promoting peace and fair play and all those things,” she said, “And I just feel that what Russia is doing right now doesn’t go with the values of sport and the values of the Olympics in general.”
The Canadian skier is wary of what motivates those who advocate for a Russian return: “I think that sport should bring people together,” Stewart-Jones said, “And people sometimes use that as an excuse to have them back.”
Stewart-Jones says that the sport’s international governing body may be motivated to welcome Russian athletes back into the sporting fold out of a desire to draw audiences back to ski racing, rather than in response to a substantive change in the war.
“We know that cross-country skiing is in trouble,” said Stewart-Jones.
She remarks that FIS and the IOC have a financial incentive to allow the Russian competitors to return: “That’s where a lot of the viewership is from, and we’ve been losing a lot of viewership.”
FIS World Cup television ratings have almost halved in the Russian team’s absence. From an international viewership of 1.28 billion in 2021 prior to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, audiences have since shrivelled to 690 million viewers worldwide.
Reporting from the BBC estimates that at least 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers, and between 160,000 and 235,000 Russian-aligned fighters have been killed in combat since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Clugnet shares some of Stewart-Jones’ moral concerns, and says that the Federation may have already backed itself into a corner: “If FIS returns the Russians, I think it kind of loses credibility — because why did they ban the Russians in the first place if they’re going to put them back in when there’s been no change in the war?”
While the present bans and the IOC’s Individual Neutral Athlete program each pose their own moral dilemmas, Clugnet says that skiing’s governing body should soften its stance toward the Russian athletes: “I think FIS should follow the IOC guidelines,” said the Brit, “Because I think the sport is actually better with the Russians.”
Whether or not athletes from Russia and Belarus will — or should — be invited to compete for medals at next year’s Olympics is still in question, and as the geopolitical winds seem to shift as wildly as the Trondheim weather, we may not have an answer any time soon.
Stuart Harden
Stuart is a teacher, coach, and former biathlete from Canmore. He writes on the intersection of sports, culture, and politics and is based in Montréal.
