IOC suspends Russian Olympic Committee for breaching charter - ESPN

GENEVA — After nearly 20 months of waging war in Ukraine, Russia was suspended by the IOC on Thursday for a land grab in sports administration.

The International Olympic Committee's executive board imposed the suspension on the Russian Olympic Committee for a breach of the Olympic Charter — a book of rules and principles for international sports bodies — by incorporating sports councils in four regions in eastern Ukraine.

Russian Olympic officials provoked the dispute last week by accepting the councils in Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia as its members.

"[This] unilateral decision," the International Olympic Committee said in a statement from Mumbai, India, «constitutes a breach of the Olympic Charter because it violates the territorial integrity of the NOC of Ukraine, as recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in accordance with the Olympic Charter.»

The suspension does not immediately affect any Russians who are returning to compete in international sporting events as neutral athletes. However, it did suggest rising frustration from the IOC and its president, Thomas Bach, who can ultimately decide to impose a blanket ban on all Russian athletes from next year's Paris Olympics.

"[The IOC] reserves the right to decide about the participation of individual neutral athletes with a Russian passport in the Olympic Games Paris 2024 and the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 at the appropriate time," the IOC said.

The Russian Olympic Committee criticized the IOC for «another counterproductive decision with obvious political motivations.»

However, the IOC under Bach has often been seen as too sympathetic to Russia during a decade-long doping scandal by never excluding all the country's athletes