World Athletics has voted to lift an eight-year doping ban on Russia, but the nation will remain excluded from international competition because of an ongoing separate ban over the invasion of Ukraine.
The decision was announced on Thursday after a three-day meeting of the World Athletics Council in Monaco.
“Council approved the recommendation to exclude athletes and officials from Russia and Belarus from all our world athletics series events for the foreseeable future due to the invasion and ongoing war in Ukraine,” the president of the sports governing body, Sebastian Coe, said at a remote news conference.
Coe had previously said Russia would need to “get out of Ukraine” before any reinstatement could be considered.
He said on Thursday that a working group would be established to advise the council on the conditions that Russia would need to meet for the ban to be lifted.
“The unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus by countries and industries all over the world appear to be the only peaceful way to disrupt and disable Russia’s current intentions and restore peace,” he said.
Russia’s sports minister condemned the ongoing ban.
“We consider these politicised restrictions unacceptable, especially in the context of the recent speech by [International Olympic Committee President] Thomas Bach against political influence in sport,” Oleg Matytsin said, according to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti. (AlJazeera)