Shubenkov’s potential neutral status will not give him any guarantee of participation in the 2024 Olympics in Paris, the athlete says

110m hurdles world champion Sergei Shubenkov in a conversation with , he said that the possible receipt of neutral status does not guarantee him participation in the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

On December 23, the press service of the All-Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF) announced that the process of obtaining neutral status will continue until the International Association of Athletics Federations (World Athletics ) decides otherwise.

“I asked for neutral status last year, but there is still no response,” Shubenkov told .

— Does it take a long time to process a new application and is there a time limit within which the application must be reviewed?

— No, it doesn’t take much time, but I don’t know if it’s worth submitting a new application, because first you need to clarify what happened to the old one. Maybe she’s lying and will come back to her. There is no deadline for reviewing these applications.

– Receiving a neutral status will allow you to participate in international competitions?

– If everything goes well and it is approved, then yes, it will be possible to participate in international competitions.

– Including at the 2024 Olympics?

– is not a fact. Neutral status is granted for one year and the Olympics will be held in 2024. The rules change every year, so I don’t know. Now I do what it takes, and what World Athletics will say, we can only speculate, and our guesses don’t always end well.

— VFLA is involved in this process?

– There is a mandatory point for ARAF and RUSADA to check this request and approve it.

ARAF has been banned from World Athletics since 2015 due to a huge doping scandal. From then on, Russian athletes could participate in international competitions only after obtaining neutral status. In March 2022, World Athletics banned Russian and Belarusian athletes from participating in international competitions.