Volleyball federation lifts Russia ban after IOC decision

The International Volleyball Federation lifted its ban on Russian athletes and teams on Wednesday, becoming one of the first major sports bodies to act on the International Olympic Committee's decision a day earlier to provisionally end Russia's suspension from international sport.

Swift Response to IOC Guidance

The FIVB announced that Russian athletes and technical officials may return to competitions at world and official levels, and that Russia's national teams will be reinstated in the world rankings with the same points they held before the freeze imposed by the organization's administrative council. A special anti-doping testing plan will be developed and implemented for Russian athletes returning to competition.mezha+1

The move came just one day after the IOC's Executive Board on Tuesday provisionally lifted its nearly three-year-old suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee, clearing a path for Russian athletes to compete at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The IOC said its restrictions on Russian participation, first imposed in February 2022 after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, were "no longer applicable".nytimes+3

IOC Frames Decision Around Athlete Access

The IOC said its decision was driven by the need to "offer equal access" to qualification competitions for the LA28 Olympics, which are already underway. The committee said it "recognises that an athlete's participation in international competition should not be limited by the involvement of their government in a war or conflict".olympics

However, the IOC has not yet decided whether Russia will be permitted to display its flag, anthem, or national colors at the Games. Russian government officials will still not be invited to IOC events, and no Olympic competitions will be held in Russia.reuters+2

Not All Federations Will Follow

The IOC's recommendation is not binding on international sports federations, and not all have chosen to comply. World Athletics reaffirmed at its 241st Council Meeting on July 2 that it would maintain its exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competition, citing "the lack of meaningful progress in peace negotiations". That ban has been in place since March 2022 and has been revisited and upheld multiple times since.pravda+1

Ukraine has condemned the IOC's broader decision. NPR reported that the move "effectively overturns a decade-long ban on Russian athletes from international sport — the price of a state-sponsored doping scandal dating back to the Russian-hosted Sochi Games of 2014 as well as the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of its neighbor".npr