Neutral feed: how is the process of admitting Russians to international startups going?

The spring of 2025 in Russian sports is marked by the expectation of decisions on neutral statuses in several medal—intensive Olympic sports - gymnastics, speed skating and figure skating, as well as artistic gymnastics, where only two sets of awards are awarded at the Olympics, but which is in many ways a landmark discipline for Russia. The first refusals in gymnastics have already been received, they have so far affected four people, two of whom are the athlete's staff, and two more are gymnasts Victoria Listunova and Alexey Usachev. For more information about the situation with the admission of Russian athletes to international competitions, see the Izvestia article.

Regulations and inspections

There was no news about any decisions on skating, figure skating, or rhythmic gymnastics on Wednesday morning, March 19. Information about the submitted lists has not been officially published, there is an explanation for this: they want to protect athletes from pressure and, possibly, harassment on social networks, which took place with Victoria Listunova. Admittedly, the words of the senior coach of the Russian national team, Valentina Rodionenko, that Listunov and Angelina Melnikova were declared neutral status, were a mistake that they understood and did not repeat in the future — they basically gave misinformation about Daniel Marinov, announcing that his questionnaire had not been sent "yet" for the status, although, of course, this It wasn't like that: Marinov eventually got admission.

The roots of the sieve, through which all those who have submitted applications for neutral status go, lie in the recommendations of the IOC dated March 28, 2023.:

— athletes of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus should act only as "neutrals";

— team sports and disciplines are not allowed;

— athletes and team personnel who actively support the conflict are not allowed;

— athletes competing for CSKA and other law enforcement agencies are not allowed;

— all eligible athletes must comply with the anti-doping rules in full.

All this was left at the mercy of international federations, which were asked to implement their own admission programs. Or not to implement it at all, whatever you want. And then the interpretation of the recommendations began on the principle of "who is good at what." The swimmers were banned from communicating with the media, but eventually allowed to participate in the relay races. Group exercises were not allowed in rhythmic gymnastics and they even wanted to oblige everyone to perform in identical blue swimsuits, but they were not forbidden to communicate with journalists. The idea of swimwear was so crazy that it was eventually abandoned. In tennis, couples were immediately admitted to the Olympics and generally treated the issue most loyally, as in ski mountaineering.

As for the winter sports, they initially decided not to grant neutral status, and the first skaters, skaters, and short-track athletes after the ski climbers, who had the opportunity to submit applications. They will also be prohibited from communicating with the press. Skiing, biathlon, bobsleigh and luge have not yet been granted neutral status, and there is less than a year left before the Olympics in Italy.

Everyone who applies for a neutral status is checked. And here lies, perhaps, the most unobvious moment for many. The fact is that it's not journalists or some activists on social media who have the most information about athletes, but betting companies. More precisely, they buy it from organizations specializing in data collection, all of which are publicly available, which allows them to calculate betting odds most accurately. The athlete posted a photo from the hospital on a social network for a couple of hours, then deleted it — it will be tracked and taken into account.

Add to this unofficial data, merged databases used by "punching" services, and we get almost unlimited opportunities to study human activity — what he posted, what he liked, who he was friends with, where he worked, whether there were tax debts, what car he drove, a photo of this car, whether he changed the account name in his personal social networks for at least one day, in which geolocations he was noticed, and so on.

In principle, with such a set of data, compromising evidence can be collected on anyone, if desired. This desire is individual for different federations: in some cases, any connection with army structures is a blocking factor, and in others it is only if an athlete has a military rank.

Refusals

The history of denial of neutral status probably begins not in gymnastics, but in cycling. The International Cycling Union launched the process back in 2023 and immediately began to maintain two lists — "white" and "black". The second one currently contains 13 names, a significant part of which ended up there due to participation in the Tour of Burkina Faso race under the Russian flag, which is prohibited by the rules. This example does not apply to other sports, but the remaining ones do. Alexey Obydennov, a three—time medalist at the World Para-sports Championships, is included in the list for his activity on social networks, Maria Novolodskaya, a silver medalist at the European Under-23 Championship, for her ties with CSKA, and the reason for the refusal of Anastasia Voynova, a two-time Olympic medalist, was the Rosgvardiya, for which she played.

At the moment, there is not a single case where an appeal has been filed to the International Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against a refusal to obtain neutral status. This step was suggested in relation to the decisions on Listunova and Usachev, but the deadline came on the night of March 17-18, there was no news about the appeal. Now about the reasons.

Most federations interpret the participation of athletes and a number of sports media figures in the March 18, 2022 rally in Luzhniki as a violation of the criteria of neutrality. The cases of wrestlers Abdulrashid Sadulaev, Zaurbek Sidakov and Zaur Uguev, who were at the rally but eventually received neutral status, should be considered separately — the International Wrestling Federation has always been quite loyal to Russia. This scenario will not work with the vast majority of other species.

The only two gymnasts who were underage at the time, Vladislava Urazova and Victoria Listunova, had a chance to challenge the denial of neutral status to those who attended the event that day. But the first one ended her career after a knee injury, and the second appeal period has already been completed. All other participants of the rally may not count on neutral statuses, as well as media figures may not count on receiving accreditations for international launches. The only solution for them is the complete return of Russia, with a flag, coat of arms and anthem.

As for social media activity, there is no single reason and recipe, each of the known cases is unique — it's some kind of like, emoji, and so on. It is necessary to study each such moment separately in order to understand the logic that led to the rejection.

Reinsurance

In addition to refusals, there are also cases when athletes were initially not included in the list for some reason of their own, apparently considering that they should not count on neutral status. These include the cases of speed skaters Pavel Kulizhnikov and Mikhail Kazelin, who were not included in the list due to their doping disqualifications in the past. Unfortunately, in this case we are dealing with the traditional desire of Russian sports officials to avoid conflict with international structures. Neither the IOC recommendations nor the ISU criteria say that athletes who once served a disqualification are prohibited from obtaining the status of "neutral". The IOC recommendations say that athletes must comply with anti-doping requirements, no more. No requirements of the WADA Code, as well as the ISU rules created on their basis, prohibit Kulizhnikov and Kazelin from participating in competitions, otherwise they would not have run in Russia this season either, as they would have violated the All-Russian Anti-Doping Rules.

For a slightly different reason, gymnast Ivan Kulyak, who became famous after demonstrating the letter Z on his uniform in the spring of 2022, was not applied for neutral status. Kulyak then served his suspension from the International Federation and has already returned to the starts. However, for some reason it was decided that the story could play out again, and Ivan would be rejected. They forgot about the basic principle of law, which, by the way, is also applied in Russia — non bis in idem — a person cannot be punished twice for the same violation. Kulyak has already served his sentence, and it will be illegal for FIG to punish him a second time. However, at the moment Ivan is not in the right shape to impose a fight on the World Cup stages, it is worth admitting this.

Obviously, the number of refusals will increase as applications are processed. The reaction to refusals is already clear in the Listunova case — loud statements in the media and complete inaction in the legal field, let alone less well-known athletes.