It’s climbing’s turn to initiate a return of Russians and Belarusians: the international federation (IFSC) announced on Monday the reinstatement from 2024 and under a neutral banner of climbers from the two countries, banned since February 2022 due to the war in Ukraine. Entering the Olympic program at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and also scheduled for the 2024 Paris Olympics, the discipline joins the ten Olympic sports that followed the recommendation issued in March by the International Olympic Committee, in the name of non-discrimination of athletes and the separation between sport and politics.
But if fencing, cycling or judo had immediately authorized a return of Russians and Belarusians, the executive committee of the IFSC only “started a process for the reintegration” of climbers from the two countries “from 2024”, explains the body. in a press release. This will require them to first obtain “a neutral license”, the terms of issue and control of which will be specified later, adds the IFSC.
This decision, after a month of consultations, “was not easy to take”, declared Marco Scolaris, president of the body, reaffirming the “firm” condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the support of the IFSC to the Ukrainian federation. “We are also aware that – tragically – more than a hundred armed conflicts are raging in the world”, he continues, explaining that he wanted to “find a balance between the different positions and establish a system which can be fairly implemented in the future” for other conflicts.
The reinstatement of the Russians and Belarusians does not mean that they will participate in the climbing events of the 2024 Olympics – one speed and one combined bouldering for each gender, against only one event per gender in Tokyo: only the IOC will decide , on a date he did not wish to set. On the other hand, this decision allows them to continue dreaming of winning the last tickets for the Games allocated during the qualifying events from March to June 2024, while Russians and Belarusians are already excluded from the world championships next August in Bern and continental qualifiers scheduled for the fall.
