Russia compensates athletes not invited to Paris Games

:The Russian Olympic Committee has paid compensation to 245 athletes who failed to meet the criteria allowing them to compete at the Paris Games this month, the RIA state news agency reported on Thursday.

Athletes from Russia and Belarus, Moscow's closest ally in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, are barred from the Games unless they compete as neutrals without flags, anthems and emblems.

Russian and Belarusian athletes have also had to undergo an additional vetting process to ensure they do not support Russia's war and have no connection to its military - which Moscow says amounts to a "conspiracy" to exclude its athletes.

"We have paid compensation to 245 athletes. These are those athletes who initially did not get the right to compete in international competitions and those who did not receive neutral status," RIA quoted Russian Olympic Committee general director Vladimir Sengleyev as saying.

Artur Dalaloyan, a 28-year-old gymnast who won gold at the Tokyo Games in 2021, told RIA he had received about 500,000 roubles ($5,600).

RIA did not specify which other sportspeople were compensated and how much money they received.

The list of Russian athletes who will head to Paris has thinned to just over a dozen, as several sports federation heads have said their squads will not take part under what they see as humiliating restrictions.

Only 16 Russian athletes are scheduled to appear in the Games, which run from July 26 to Aug. 11, compared to 335 athletes at the last Summer Games in Tokyo in 2021.

($1 = 88.1955 roubles)

(Reporting and writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Ken Ferris)