Russia is increasingly becoming a sporting pariah, as international federations meet to decide the fate of its athletes.
Yesterday, Fifa and Uefa suspended Russian national teams and clubs for the foreseeable future over the invasion of Ukraine, while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have recommended that international sports federations and events did not allow the participation of Russian or Belarusian athletes.
Last night, motorsport’s governing body, the FIA, called an emergency meeting of their World Council to respond to the Russian situation.
Already, the Russian Grand Prix in September has been axed from the calendar and the council was meeting to decide the fate of Russian drivers across all forms of motorsport, notably F1 driver Nikita Mazepin.
Mazepin’s Haas team had already scrapped the branding from Russian firm Uralkali on their livery in the Barcelona test last week, which had already put the Russian’s future for this season in doubt. Mazepin’s billionaire father, Dmitry, owns a sizeable stake in the business and has ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin.
In a statement, the FIA said: “An extraordinary meeting of the World Motor Sport Council will be convened to discuss matters relating to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Further updates will be given following the meeting.”
Mazepin is believed to be the top of the agenda for discussion after Leonid Kostyuchenk, president of the Automobile Federation of Ukraine, called on the FIA to ban all Russian and Belarusian drivers. Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has said there are no guarantees on Mazepin’s future, less than three weeks before the start of the new season.
The International Paralympic Committee’s (IPC) executive board will meet in Beijing tomorrow to decide the fate of the 71-strong Russian contingent set to compete at the Games, some of whom have already arrived in China. The IPC are under pressure to follow the guidance by the IOC, with the British Olympic Association last night also calling for the “immediate exclusion of Russia and Belarus from the international sports family”.
That was today backed by the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, which requested “a complete ban on international sport participation, effective immediately and inclusive of the Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 for Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials”.
The International Tennis Federation have put a hold all events in Russia and said that they were in “active discussion with the ITF tennis family and the ITF Board to decide and align around the next course of action”.
At its most severe, that could equate to the likes of newly-crowned world No1 Daniil Medvedev being stopped from competing at all or else continuing to compete but without the Russian flag or anthem.
Ukrainian player Elina Svitolina last night refused to play Russian Anastasia Potapova in Monterrey later today. She called on the ITF, ATP and WTA to only allow Russian and Belarusian players as “neutral athletes”. But overnight reports in the Ukrainian media suggested the match could yet go ahead, with the world No15 quoted as saying: “All flags and written attributes pointing to Russia will be removed during tomorrow’s match.”
World Badminton today banned all players of both nationalities from competing, while the Norwegian Ski Federation blocked cross-country skiers from Russia and Belarus from the event they are hosting this weekend, despite them being cleared to compete by the Ski Federation. World swimming’s FINA said they would allow athletes to compete as “neutral athletes or neutral teams”.
