IOC names first three athletes from Russia, Belarus eligible for 2026 Winter Games

BERLIN :The International Olympic Committee on Thursday cleared one Belarusian and two Russian figure skaters to compete at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Games as neutrals, the first athletes of their countries to be invited to take part amid sanctions.

Russians Petr Gumennik and Adeliia Petrosian as well as Viktoriia Safonova of Belarus are eligible to compete at next February's Olympics in Italy following an evaluation by the IOC's eligibility panel, it said in a statement.

The IOC ruled in September that Russians and Belarusians cleared to compete at the Games would compete as neutral independent athletes, just as they did in the Paris 2024 summer Games, without a national flag or anthem, maintaining their sanctions.

The Olympic body suspended the Russian Olympic Committee in October 2023 for recognising regional Olympic councils for Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine - Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - following Russia's 2022 invasion, saying the move had violated the Olympic Charter.

Russian and Belarusian athletes who reach qualifying standards are first vetted by the panel for any links to the Russian military or support for the war in Ukraine, both of which will lead to their exclusion.

Russian teams are banned from the Milano-Cortina Games. Belarus has acted as a staging ground for the invasion of Ukraine.