Individual Neutral Athletes at the 2024 Summer Olympics

Individual Neutral Athletes (Индивидуальные нейтральные спортсмены, Індывідуальныя нейтральныя спартсмены) is the name used to represent approved Russian and Belarusian athletes at the 2024 Summer Olympics, after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned the nations' previous designations due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The IOC country code is AIN, after the French name Athlètes Individuels Neutres.

The delegation is banned from using the neutral Olympic flag and Olympic anthem, and will instead use a flag depicting a circular AIN emblem and a one-off instrumental anthem, both assigned by the IOC. Individual neutral athletes must be first approved by each sport's international federation, and then by a special panel created by the IOC. As individual athletes, the delegation will not take part in the parade of nations during the opening ceremony, nor be listed as a delegation in the official medal tables.

While the flag uses the singular wording "Individual Neutral Athlete", the IOC uses the plural wording "Individual Neutral Athletes" in prose.

Timeline
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the IOC banned Russia and Belarus and recommended that other international sporting organizers do the same on 28 February 2022. Accordingly, Russian and Belarusian athletes were banned from the 2022 Winter Paralympics.

On 25 January 2023, the IOC published a statement supporting the idea that Russian and Belarusian athletes could be allowed to compete as neutrals, as long as they did not "actively" support the war and as long as Russian and Belarusian flags, anthems, colors, and names were disallowed (thus banning the alternate designations used by Russia in 2018 and 2020).

On 28 March 2023, the IOC introduced the AIN name and narrowed the requirements down to individual athletes, disallowing any teams of Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing. For events organized by international federations other than the IOC, the IOC recommended to use no flag at all (or if not possible, the event's flag, the IF's flag, or the letters "AIN") and the event's anthem or the IF's anthem. Federations that did not have French as an official language still used the AIN name. The IOC also donated $5 million to the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine.

On 22 September 2023, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) banned the Russian flag and anthem from international sporting events for a second time due to Russian legislation and RUSADA failing to comply with the World Anti-Doping Code, overlapping with the Olympic Truce ban. WADA announced that the ban would not be lifted until "the non-conformities related to national legislation are corrected in full."

On 12 October 2023, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee until further notice, overlapping with the other two bans, due to its violation of the Olympic Charter due to annexing the Olympic Councils of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk into the Russian Olympic Committee; at the time of its violation of the Olympic Charter, Russian Olympic Committee president Stanislav Pozdnyakov had said: "I don’t see any difficulties here." The Russian Olympic Committee responded to its suspension by saying that the IOC had not issued a similar suspension after the Russian Olympic Committee annexed a sporting entity in Crimea in 2014, to which IOC President Thomas Bach remarked, "this argument was a little bit, 'Why did you not sanction us already, earlier?

On 8 December 2023, the IOC published a "draft" version of the AIN flag depicting a colorless emblem on a white background, and stated that they would decide on a different neutral anthem at a later date. The IOC also officially stated that the AIN designation would apply to the Paris 2024 games, and that official medal tables would exclude AIN.

On 19 March 2024, the IOC updated the AIN flag to teal text and a teal background, and published an instrumental anthem "produced solely for this purpose." The IOC also stated that as independent athletes, AIN will not participate as a delegation during the parade of nations at the opening ceremony, but the athletes would still "be given the opportunity to experience the event".

Controversy
Ukrainian officials have criticized the IOC for not banning Russia despite it thrice violating the Olympic Truce, while others have alternately criticized the IOC for applying rules against Russia that do not get applied against other countries.

In particular, the requirement that athletes must not actively support the war has been described as "ineffectual". For example, Russian IOC member Yelena Isinbayeva was cleared as "not linked with the Russian military and not supporting the invasion", despite being pictured in military uniform and receiving military promotions, and despite pro-Russian citizens expressing anger at Isinbayeva after she claimed in defense that she had "never been in the service of the armed forces". On 29 December 2023, an open letter signed by 261 Ukrainian athletes contained evidence that three of the six Russian athletes cleared to participate had in fact actively supported the war, such as by participating in a pro-war rally in March 2022, or starring in a propaganda video explicitly stating and drumming up support for the Russian military.

A compromise suggestion by Poland, where Russians and Belarusians could compete if they were dissidents, was not acted upon by the IOC.

In December 2023, Russian Olympic Committee president Stanislav Pozdnyakov directly threatened any Russian athlete who may choose to participate as a "neutral" at the 2024 Olympics, saying: "As the head of the ROC, I voice a clear position: ... We live in a free state... But... we strongly recommend that you thoroughly understand ... the extent and consequences of the personal responsibility assumed."

In June 2024, Dmitry Chernyshenko, the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia for Tourism, Sport, Culture and Communications, stated that Russian athletes would not violate Russian law by competing in Paris as neutrals and encouraged them to participate: However, despite Chernyshenko's encouragement, the Russian Wrestling Federation decided on 6 July to boycott the Games after most of its leading athletes were deemed ineligible to compete by the IOC.

Competitors
The following is the list of number of competitors in the Games.

32 competitors:


 * 1) Belarus – 17 competitors
 * 2) Russia – 15 competitors

The following is a list of the number of competitors representing the Individual Neutral Athletes that participated at the Games:

Sprint
Individual Neutral Athlete canoeists qualified one boat for the Games through the result of highest rank eligible nation's in the following events, through the 2024 European Canoe Sprint Qualifier in Szeged, Hungary.

Qualification Legend: FA = Qualify to final (medal); FB = Qualify to final B (non-medal)

Road
Four Individual Neutral Athletes qualified as riders for the road race events after securing the quotas through the UCI Nation Ranking.

Trampoline
Three Individual Neutral Athletes (one male and two females) entered into the 2024 Summer Olympics trampoline competition through the World Cup Series ranking.

Rowing
The Individual Neutral Athlete rowers qualified boats in each of the following classes through the 2023 World Rowing Championships in Belgrade, Serbia and the 2024 European Qualification Regatta in Szeged, Hungary.

Shooting
Individual Neutral Athlete shooters achieved quota places for the following events based on their results at the 2024 ISSF World Olympic Qualification Tournament and 2024 European Championship.

Swimming
Individual Neutral Athlete swimmers achieved the entry standards in the following events for Paris 2024 (a maximum of two swimmers under the Olympic Qualifying Time (OST) and potentially at the Olympic Consideration Time (OCT)):

Taekwondo
Initially, Maksim Khramtsov, Vladislav Larin, Tatiana Minina, and Polina Khan qualified for the Games but the IOC did not declare them neutral and they were not invited to the Games.


 * Men

Weightlifting
Three Individual Neutral Athlete entered into the Olympic competition as weightlifters. Petr Asayonak (men's -89 kg), Yauheni Tsikhantsou (men's 102 kg), Eduard Ziaziulin (men's +102 kg) and Siuzanna Valodzka (women's 71 kg) secured one of the top ten slots in her weight divisions based on the IWF Olympic Qualification Rankings.

Wrestling
Initially, Zaur Uguev, Shamil Mamedov, Zaurbek Sidakov,Artur Naifonov, Alikhan Zhabrailov, Abdulla Kurbanov, Sadyk Lalaev, Milad Alirzaev, Artur Sargsian, Sergey Semenov, Nadezhda Sokolova, Alina Kasabieva and Khanum Valieva qualified for the Olympic competition, but On July 6, 2024, Russian Wrestling Federation announced that all its invited wrestlers have unanimously decided to refuse to participate in the Olympics.

Key:
 * VT (ranking points: 5–0 or 0–5) – Victory by fall.
 * VB (ranking points: 5–0 or 0–5) – Victory by injury (VF for forfeit, VA for withdrawal or disqualification)
 * PP (ranking points: 3–1 or 1–3) – Decision by points – the loser with technical points.
 * PO (ranking points: 3–0 or 0–3) – Decision by points – the loser without technical points.
 * ST (ranking points: 4–0 or 0–4) – Great superiority – the loser without technical points and a margin of victory of at least 8 (Greco-Roman) or 10 (freestyle) points.
 * SP (ranking points: 4–1 or 1–4) – Technical superiority – the loser with technical points and a margin of victory of at least 8 (Greco-Roman) or 10 (freestyle) points.


 * Freestyle


 * Greco-Roman