Some athletes from Russia, Belarus can compete under neutral banner in Milan-Cortina Olympics

The International Olympic Committee will allow some individual athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete as neutral athletes at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in February.

The IOC will use the same criteria as it did at the Paris Summer Olympics in 2024, where qualified individual athletes from those two countries were screened by a panel. Thirty two Russian or Belarusian athletes from 10 different sports were approved to compete as Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN) in Paris. 

Teams of Russian or Belarusian athletes will not be allowed to compete.

"We fully believe in how things were delivered in Paris," IOC president Kirsty Coventry told reporters on Friday from Italy, where Olympic officials toured several venues and held executive board meetings this week. "We had the discussion that we need to ensure fairness, of course, and other things are respected. So we decided that everything would remain the same."

Eligibility criteria includes not actively supporting Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which started just days after the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, and undergoing screening for ties to military or national security agencies. The approved athletes will compete under the Individual Neutral Athlete flag and won't hear their country's anthem played should they win a medal.

At least two sports federations, the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation and the International Luge Federation, have already said they won't allow Russian athletes to compete at the 2026 Games as neutral athletes.

The decision comes on the same day the IOC issued a statement expressing concern about several conflicts across the globe, the disruption of sports competition and "the boycotting and cancellation of competitions