Some Russian athletes, Belarus, can compete under a neutral banner at the Olympic Cortina -

The Olympic International Committee will allow certain individual athletes in Russia and Belarusian to compete as neutral ashletes at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympic Games in February.

The IOC will use the same criteria as at the Paris Olympic Summer Games in 2024, where individual athletes qualified from these two countries were screened by a panel. Thirty-two Russian or Belarusian athletes of 10 different sports have been approved to compete as an individual neutral (Ain) in Paris.

Russian or Belarusian athlete teams will not be allowed to compete.

“We fully believe in the way things have been delivered to Paris,” IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, for journalists from Italy, on Friday, where Olympic officials have visited several sites and held meetings of the board of directors this week. “We had the discussion that we have to ensure equity, of course, and other things are respected. So we decided that everything would remain the same.”

The eligibility criteria include not actively supporting the current invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which started only a few days after the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing and has been tested with military or national security agencies. The approved athletes will compete under the flag of the individual neutral athlete and will not hear the anthem of their country to play if they win a medal.

A swimmer with glasses and a swimming cap is held behind a sign that says "Ain." — The swimmer Alina Zmushka was one of the athletes approved to compete under the banner of individual neutral athletes at the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. (Bernat Armangue / The Associated Press)

At least two sports federations, the International Federation of Bobslets and Skeletons and the International Toboggan Federation, have already declared that they would not allow Russian athletes to compete at 2026 games as neutral ads.

The decision comes the same day that the IOC has published a declaration expressing its concern concerning several conflicts around the world, the disruption of the sports competition and “the boycott and the cancellation of competitions due to political tensions”. The CIO declaration has not made any private conflict or country.

“Each member of the board of directors has been taken up and saddened, really, when you look at the world and what is happening today, by the images we see daily,” said Coventry.

“It was really very stimulating, in fact, for us to sit around the table together and to discuss because we have all realized that now more than ever, our movement, the sports movement, must present the good that is in humanity. We believe more than ever we must reaffirm our commitment to peace.”

The IOC announced on Friday that its board of directors created a working group “aimed at ensuring that the IOC, the Olympic Games and Sport remain politically neutral and can maintain their mission to unite the world in peaceful competition”.

Coventry goes to the UN summit

After Coventry was elected first president of the organization in March, she promised that she would use diplomacy when he treated an often unpredictable American president, while this country is preparing to welcome the world in Los Angeles for the Summer Olympic Games in 2028.

“Regarding the United States and Los Angeles, I am dealing, let’s say, difficult men in high positions since the age of 20,” Coventry said at his first press conference in March. “First and foremost, what I learned is that communication will be the key. This is something that will happen very early.”

Two people pass in front of large white buildings. — Coventry and the CIO board of directors visited the progress of the village of athletes for the Olympic and Paralympic athletes during a visit to Italy this week. (Antonio Calanni / The Associated Press)

She said that she believed that Donald Trump wanted the Los Angeles Games to succeed, but stressed that the IOC “would not do our values” in the process.

Coventry officially took the job post in June, and all eyes will be at the top of the United Nations General Assembly next week in New York. This is where Coventry can have his first opportunity to sit in person with Trump.

“We have a number of heads of state planned and pencil,” said Coventry.

Additional body weight categories added for weightlifting

The Los Angeles Olympic Games will have two additional body weight categories at weightlifting – one for women and one for men – to reduce “incentives for an extreme weight reduction” and better align with the categories that sport uses in its world championships, Coventry also announced on Friday.

The sports quota has not changed – 60 women and 60 men will participate in six body weight categories per sex, with a total of 10 weightlifting per event.

“Halterophilic representatives have estimated that a higher number of body weight categories would offer a more balanced gap between each of them, thereby minimizing the possible impact on health and the risk of injuries on athletes,” the International Halterophilia Federation said on Friday.

Questions remain on the chronology of the ice hockey rink

According to reports from the Associated Press, one of the location of the IOC tour was the rebuilt -revenue center that the local organizers defended the wishes of the IOC.

The sliding center project was targeted by the Vandals last year. The backup plan, if the sliding center is not finished in time, was not ideal: the toboggans, bobslevés and skeletons should have competed in Lake Placid, NY, far from the heart of the games.

“We had problems with the sliding center,” said Kristin Kloster, head of the IOC coordination committee for the Milan-Cortina Games, earlier this week. “We thought that the chronology was too short, and we also thought that the benefit inherited from the new sliding center would probably not meet the expectations we wanted.

“After saying all this, the decision of the national authorities of Italy to create a sliding center … exceeded our expectations: they have delivered in time, the shift (center) has already been tested by athletes and I think that everything goes really well. I am therefore impressed by work.”

A building under construction is represented from above. — The Santagiulia ice hockey arena under construction is represented by the top in March 2025. Once finished, it will host many Male Olympic hockey games and semi-final and finals of Women’s Olympic Hockey. It also houses para-hockey during the Paralympic Games. (Claudio Villa / Getty Images)

The members of the IOC board of directors also visited the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena site, which is supposed to welcome 16,000 fans in many Olympic male hockey games, as well as the semi-final and final of the Women’s Olympic hockey games. It also houses para-hockey during the Paralympic Games.

The organizers of Milan-Cortina said earlier this year that the calendar would be tight. If all goes to planning, the organizers will not be able to enter the new building to start creating temporary ice before October.

It would see the ice finished in December, then tested less than two months before the opening of the games.

Milan-Cortina CEO Andrea Varnier, said earlier this week that the chronology was still quite tight. He said that the place will be finished “very close to matches”.

“We know that there are very tight deadlines, we monitor it and that we are rightly nervous because the schedules are very important,” he said. “For the moment, they are all in the plan we have imagined.”

Varnier said in March that the organizers had not seen the need for a backup plan for the arena.

https://i.cbc.ca/1.7638461.1758300926!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_1180/italy-2026-milan-cortina-winter-olympics.jpg?im=Resize%3D620