Swimming world record holder Evgenia Chikunova told that she was happy that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) met Russian athletes halfway on the issue of admission to the Paris Olympics.
On Friday, the IOC announced it would allow Russian and Belarusian athletes who successfully qualified for the 2024 Olympics to have individual neutral status.
— It’s good that the IOC met us halfway by allowing us to go to the Olympic Games in Paris. Only now it is completely unclear how to qualify for the Olympics and how everything will happen now, what the requirements will be.
— Were you waiting for this news? Or did you not expect anything at all?
“The situation is such that I don’t expect anything at all. But, as I said before, I am happy that they met us halfway,” Chikunova told .
In April, Chikunova won the 200 meter breaststroke at the Russian Championships in Kazan in a world record.
At the end of March 2023, the IOC announced recommendations for the admission of Russian and Belarusian athletes to international competitions. These include individual admission, neutral status, banning participation in team sports, and banning participation of athletes associated with security forces or who have expressed support for the SVO. The same requirements now apply to the Olympic Games.
Previously, the IOC Executive Committee suspended the membership of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC). In Paris, Russian and Belarusian athletes can only compete in neutral individual status (AIN), without flags, anthems and other national symbols.
The Paris Olympic Games will take place from July 26 to August 11, 2024.
Source : MatchTV

I’m John White and I’m an experienced journalist working in the news industry. My specialty is covering sports news, which I’ve been doing for over 6 years now. During this time, I have worked as an author with Athletistic, a popular online news website focusing on sports topics.