The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has put forward a list of Russian and Belarusian athletes that will be eligible to compete at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, which includes four road cyclists.
The riders who are eligible to race the road cycling events include Bora Hansgrohe's Aleksandr Vlasov, Roland's Tamara Dronova and UAE Team ADQ's Alena Ivanchenko who all have Russian passports. Belarusian Hanna Tserakh, who rides with BTC City Ljubljana Zhiraf Ambedo, was also named among the Individual Neutral Athletes (IANs).
Russian and Belarusian athletes, teams, and events have been the subject of UCI sanctions since March 1, 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine with the assistance of Belarus. However, the decision was made to allow qualified athletes selected by the IOC and their International Federations to compete as Individual neutral athletes, a move followed by the UCI when it comes to World Championships, World Cups, Nations Cups and other UCI events.
An Individual Neutral Athlete Eligibility Review Panel (AINERP) was set up to evaluate the eligibility of each athlete with a Russian or Belarusian passport in March 2024, as well as their support personnel. A number of conditions were outlined in an IOC statement on the rules in December, including that athletes who actively support the war will not be eligible to be entered or to compete and that athletes who are contracted to the Russian or Belarusian military or national security agencies will not be eligible to be entered or to compete.
"The Panel was in a position to benefit from new information from various sources, in particular official lists of athletes affiliated with sports clubs of the military and the security forces published on official websites in Russia and Belarus," said the IOC in its statement.
The athletes named were spread across a number of sports, including gymnastics, weightlifting and wrestling, while Taekwondo was also included but despite there being 4 quota places for athletes with a Russian passport and one for athletes with a Belarusian passport no athletes were declared eligible. In cycling the full quota was filled.
The road cycling events at the Paris Olympic Games start on Saturday, July 27 with the time trials and the men's road race will take place a week later on August 3 with the women's the day after on August 4. The maximum quota of riders for the top five qualifying nations in the road race is four.
The men's road race will be 273km long, with 2800m of elevation gain accumulated over repeated efforts on small climbs while the women's race has 1,700m of elevation gain over 158km.
