This is part of Slate’s 2026 Olympics coverage. Read more here. 

If you watched the opening ceremony of the Milan Cortina Games, you may have noticed a conspicuous omission during the parade of nations. Because of its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine almost exactly four years ago, Russia—and its allies in Belarus—has been banned from participating in these Olympics. (The two nations were also banned from the Paris Games in 2024.) Even so, there are still 20 Russian and Belarussian athletes in Italy, competing as “Individual Neutral Athletes” under a teal flag like some bizarro version of the Miami Marlins. What are they doing there? And what’s the deal with that clunky Individual Neutral Athletes phrase?

The story of Russia at the Olympics, much like the story of Russia itself, is long, complicated, and very confusing. From 1900 to 1912, Russian athletes showed up at the Olympics under the banner of the Russian Empire. World War I forced the cancellation of the 1916 Berlin Games, and by the time hostilities ceased and the Olympics returned in 1920, there was no more Russian Empire. The leaders of the new Soviet Union apparently had better things to do than field an international track team, and so Russian athletes went unrepresented at the Olympic Games for the next 32 years.

In 1952, after having dispatched the Nazis, launched a successful nuclear program, and drawn the Iron Curtain, the U.S.S.R. showed up at the Olympics with a vengeance, fielding a massive team and winning a ton of medals across various disciplines at the Helsinki Games. The Soviet Union sent successful teams to every subsequent Olympics through 1988, with the exception of the 1984 Los Angeles Games, which the Soviets boycotted in response to America’s boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games. Then, in December 1991, the Soviet Union broke up—and it’s at that point that the story of Russia and the Olympics gets much harder to follow.

The 1992 Albertville Games were held only a few months after the Soviet Union collapsed, and the IOC basically pretended like it hadn’t collapsed. All of the athletes who would’ve competed for the U.S.S.R. came to Albertville anyway—except, instead of bearing the Soviet flag, they competed as the “Unified Team.” This euphemism carried through that year’s Summer Olympics, too. By 1994, though, the Unified Team had splintered, and the former Soviet republics thenceforth participated as individual nations under their own separate flags.

Cut to July 2016, weeks before the Rio Games were scheduled to begin, when the World Anti-Doping Agency issued a report alleging that Russia had operated a massive state-sponsored doping program during the 2014 Sochi Games. Although WADA advised that Russia be banned from participating in the 2016 Summer Olympics, the IOC politely ignored that advice. Instead, the sporteaucrats chose a much more complicated solution: They would individually evaluate every single Russian athlete to determine whether they would be allowed to come to Rio. A couple hundred Russian Olympians made the cut, and competed as “Russia” for what turned out to be the very last time (at least thus far).

By 2018, more information had come to light regarding the scope and flagrancy of the Russian Olympic doping program. In response, the IOC decided to bar the Russian Olympic Committee from sending a delegation to the Winter Games in Pyeongchang. This did not mean that Russian athletes were banned from the Pyeongchang Games. Instead, those who passed their drug tests and had no prior history of doping were allowed to compete as “Olympic Athletes from Russia,” or OAR, in an obvious tribute to the D.C.-area rock band known for songs such as “Love and Memories” and “Shattered (Turn the Car Around).”

Back then, I said that “Olympics Athletes From Russia” was a “craven euphemism for a craven Olympic Games.” And that was two euphemisms ago!

In 2019, WADA formally banned Russia from international competition for four years. As you may have guessed by now, this ban did not stop Russia from finding a way to send its athletes to the Olympics. In 2020 and 2022, Russian athletes competed under the aegis of the Russian Olympic Committee, or ROC, in a clear reference to the beloved Fox sitcom starring Charles F. Dutton. (I distinctly remember asking my editor if I could interview the Roc showrunner to find out if he had any thoughts about the ROC athletes. He said no.)

In those games, the “ROC” athletes were competing for Russia in all meaningful respects. Vladimir Putin even went to the 2022 Olympics to cheer those athletes on. In case you’ve forgotten, Putin is the president of Russia. There is no president of ROC, at least not since Roc got canceled.

By the time of the 2024 Paris Games, the WADA ban had expired—only to be replaced by a new ban on both the Russian and Belarussian Olympic Committees, issued by the IOC in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just days after the 2022 Beijing Games had concluded. Thirty-two Russian and Belarussian athletes who met certain conditions competed in Paris anyway under the new “Individual Neutral Athletes” moniker, although they were not allowed to participate in the opening ceremony. (Given that said ceremony was cold and rainy and took place on a river, though, it wasn’t much of a loss.)


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Now, 20 Individual Neutral Athletes are back at the Milan Cortina Games, under similar conditions—no opening ceremony for them!—and likely eliciting similar confusion from Olympics viewers who are sick of keeping track of the kludgy terminology that the international sporteaucracy uses to obscure the fact that it doesn’t have the guts to make a clear decision about Russia, its leaders, and its athletes.

Russia, Olympic Athletes from Russia, the Russian Olympic Committee, Individual Neutral Athletes: These various titles are distinctions without a difference. Everybody knows that these athletes come from Russia. Everybody knows that they are competing for Russia. And while the medals they win won’t accrue to Russia’s all-time medal count, everybody also knows that Putin doesn’t care about that technicality.

If the point is to ban Russia from the Olympics, then the IOC should ban Russia from the Olympics. If Russian athletes are going to be allowed to compete, don’t try to convince us that they’re neutral parties just because they’re flying a teal flag.

Justin Peters
Donald Trump Ruins Everything. He Will Not Ruin the Winter Olympics.
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