(Lausanne) Sending a clear signal to the IOC, the international federations and national Olympic committees demanded on Tuesday the admission “as soon as possible” of Russian and Belarusian athletes to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, under a neutral banner.

The Olympic Summit, an annual meeting behind closed doors in Lausanne, had already started last year the reintegration of these two countries into world sport. It makes it possible, more broadly, to establish the majority positions within the Olympic world.

However, the message sent by its final press release is clear: the “representatives of the international summer sports federations”, supported by those of the 209 national Olympic organizations, “asked the IOC to declare eligible” for the Paris Games “the individual athletes neutrals who have qualified or will qualify” for the event.

The formula targets Russians and Belarusians, first excluded from world sport following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, then readmitted under a neutral banner and under conditions from last March, without their possible presence in the Olympic Games-2024 is then decided.

Representatives of the international federations “also requested a decision as soon as possible, to provide clarity to their Olympic qualification procedures and for all athletes concerned,” the statement continued.

The text does not specify whether this is a unanimous position, while international sporting bodies have reinstated the Russians and Belarusians in their competitions in dispersed order, and the international athletics federation – a major Olympic discipline – is still refuses to do it.

But this recommendation received the approval of the president of the IOC Athletes’ Commission, the Finnish Emma Terho, who clarified that “overall, the vast majority of athletes are of the opinion that athletes should not be punished for actions of their governments.”

This formula is also exactly that of the IOC when it recommended the return of the Russians and Belarusians under a neutral banner. But the body then explained that their possible presence at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, which open on July 26, would be decided “at the appropriate time”, according to criteria never specified since.

But time is running out, believes Emma Terho, for whom “clarity on (this) question would be appreciated by the athletes, because the Paris Olympic Games are fast approaching”.

For its part, the Olympic body limited itself on Tuesday to “confirming that the participation of such neutral individual athletes in the Olympic Games could only occur under the strict conditions” set last March: without an anthem or flag, excluding sports team, and on condition of not having actively supported the conflict in Ukraine.

“Neither the qualification system (for the Paris Games) developed by the international federations, nor the number of places allocated to a sport will be modified for neutral athletes holding a Russian or Belarusian passport,” the IOC continued.

Clearly, athletes who missed chances of qualifying because the federations concerned were slow to reinstate them – such as in swimming or climbing, while awaiting a final decision from athletics – will have no possibility of catching up.

The Olympic body, which met last week in Paris without addressing the question of the Russians and Belarusians, did not specify when it would decide.

But its executive commission meets again on January 18, then from March 19 to 21 – the two meetings that will follow, from June 12 to 14 and July 20 to 22, appear too close to the Paris event to leave suspense drag on.