Talk:Authorised Neutral Athletes

Requested move 10 July 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 04:24, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Authorised Neutral Athletes → Authorised Neutral Athlete – That seems to be the actual name, see, , Pelmeen10 (talk) 16:35, 10 July 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Dekimasu よ! 17:05, 19 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose per these main reasons: 1) it's corect Authorised Neutral Athletes at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics, but Authorised Neutral Athlete at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics makes a nonsense; 2) the plural form is used in all other international Wikipedia; 3) IAAF RULES (qoute: A total of 30 Russian athletes have so far been declared eligible to compete as Authorised Neutral Athletes in 2018.) --Kasper2006 (talk) 01:02, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
 * First of all, they are two different things. You have athlete, not athletes; and "athletes at competition", because there's more than one competitor (for correct language), but they are still individual competitors - can they for example compete at relays? Did you check the links I provided, why is the "team" called differently there? Would it be called "..Athletes" when IAAF only allows one competitor? Other Wikipedias don't matter here at all. Pelmeen10 (talk) 01:20, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, but in this case Authorized Neutral Athletes in a medal table or in a placed table are considered as if they were a country. --Kasper2006 (talk) 02:39, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
 * IAAF has never included ANA athletes in a medal table (nor placing table). We included them mostly to avoid misunderstanding with medal counts/distributed medals. Pelmeen10 (talk) 03:41, 11 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I understand the reasoning, but I think we should keep it as Authorised Neutral Athletes as a noun encompassing multiple people to match the other athletics team articles like United States national track and field team rather than (non-existent) United States track and field competitor. Wikipedia doesn't necessarily always use the 'official' names for things if another name is more common or more consistent with other pages. --Habst (talk) 02:40, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
 * That's actually the main reason why we should call (and IAAF is calling) it (specifically this article, and only this article) Authorised Neutral Athlete, to show that it's not a team just a name for each individual competitor. And they can't compete at relay competitions. You are talking about other articles and other context, but I only suggest renaming this article. The first sentence here "... is a category..." is already singular. Do you think that in this article, my suggestion is inappropriate? This article is also currently too short. Pelmeen10 (talk) 04:02, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it's a matter of opinion, but I would consider ANA a 'team' insofar as you would consider the Athlete Refugee Team a 'team', especially because all of the athletes competing on it come from the same country, travel and train together, even score their performances together (done by the Russian federation), etc. I agree that if this is resolved to not rename, then we should also edit the first paragraph to say it is a team as well as classification to be consistent. I'll try to expand the article's length later, but I agree we could improve it with more than just the picture I added. --Habst (talk) 14:20, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Athlete Refugee Team is very different, they can compete in relays, like 2017 IAAF World Relays - and yes, they are a team. ANA athletes come from the same country but "travel and train together, even score their performances together (done by the Russian federation), etc." - they can (can not also), but it's not the point here. Neutral basically means teamless. In the world of athletics (our context), team = country, but what IAAF did - Russian athletes can't represent their country, they represent only themselves, not any team or country. --Pelmeen10 (talk) 15:24, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm sure the ANA team would compete in relays if they were allowed to, but the IAAF prevents that. In every other way though I really do think they function like a team. I see where you are coming from but I think you're applying a prescriptivist approach while mine is a descriptivist one -- if the athletes train together, travel together, compete together, support each other, and are most often categorized as a whole as in article titles like Authorised Neutral Athletes at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics, then as per WP:DUCK I think they should be described as a team on Wikipedia despite what the IAAF may (perhaps validly, considering the doping violations) say. --Habst (talk) 18:48, 11 July 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Expand the scope beyond track and field and doping
From a conversation on Talk:2022 World Rally Championship: I suggested this article should be expanded to include all instances of authorised neutral athletes across sport. I don't believe it should be restricted to the Russian doping scandal in track and field and I don't believe there needs to be a new article for every sport, i.e Motorsport and Tennis; for every occasion, i.e doping, the Ukraine invasion, whatever is next. I understand ANA was first used in track and field athletics, but it is not a 'team' and is no longer in use in TAF athletics, whereas the phrase authorised neutral athletes is now being used across sport chiefly under guidance from the IOC/Olympic Movement. (in the current WRC season, motorsport competitors are competing as ANA which has nothing to do with doping).

The Olympic Movement includes International Sports Federations (“IFs”), so all types of sports defer such decisions to it, one being the FIA/motorsport. Following this IOC/OM recommendation, the specific term 'ANA' was absorbed into WRC, and I was chastised for linking to this article.

Given how short this article is, if it is desired to be restricted to the use of a track and field 'team' - shouldn't that be a more specific titled article, freeing this up for all cases of authorised neutral athletes? I also make the case that this isn't like a brand name, so neutral athletes that are authorised, athletes who are neutral, authorised athletes etc all have the same meaning subject to use case. Rally Wonk (talk) 13:54, 29 July 2022 (UTC)


 * What if the only connection in rallying is that the rally team googled and downloaded this "flag". Not a "category under which Russian athletes can compete at international competitions" like mentioned in this article. It doesn't seem to be official or supported by any sources. Hopefully at one point a journalist asks "what is ANA or why do they use it". Pelmeen10 (talk) 15:52, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Some motorsport publications you can find this complete specific phrase "authorised neutral athlete":
 * Dirtfish of Gryazin
 * Motorsport News of Gryazin
 * Rally.it of Gryazin
 * Autosport of Smolyar
 * The last one is about an F3 driver, this season's official FIA entry lists has the driver as AND, I'm sure you would accept stands for authorised neutral driver with having an FIA source. It's quite clear journalists are not confused by what ANA stands for and that drivers/athletes/competitors are interchangeable. There is no need to raise any question. Rally Wonk (talk) 16:50, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
 * So are you gonna create Authorised Neutral Driver (AND)? This is what the FIA rules officially write. They are not following the FIA rules in rallying by using "ANA". Pelmeen10 (talk) 20:13, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Would be good to mention that Belarusian athletes were not banned after Russian doping scandal (or that only Russian athletes were banned at first). And Smolyar (other FIA disciplines) too if AND is redirected here. Pelmeen10 (talk) 22:46, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Agreed, many of these references are dead links too so will fix in time. Rally Wonk (talk) 22:59, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Individual Neutral Athletes
Some people are linking "Individual Neutral Athletes" (AIN) to this page from different sports. apparently that's the term IOC suggested for RUS/BLR athletes for now. while I understand why people are linking them but I'm not sure if that's a good idea because this term Authorised Neutral Athletes is created by the World Athletics and it's not global. is it a good idea to create a new page like Individual Neutral Athletes to cover all other sports ? Sports2021 (talk) 20:18, 13 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Hello! I do not see any fundamental differences in these terms, except for the name (the term "Authorised Neutral Athletes" was been perviously used by World Athletics/IAAF while the term "Individual Neutral Athletes" was proposed by International Olympic Committee in their latest recomendations and later was been used by some international sport federations at the international competitions like 2023 World Judo Championships or 2023 World Taekwondo Championships). The main principles remains the same: if certain national sport federation was been suspended/banned by corresponding international sport body due to politics reasons, doping scandals or other issues, then certain athletes from this national federation may participate in the international competitions as neutrals if they will meet specific conditions established by the international sports federation (but their results will be not counted in the official medal table or official team rankings). Moreover, this Wiki article clearly indicates that these principles are used not only in World Athletics but in other kinds of sport: "Originally introduced in athletics in 2017 following the Russian doping scandal which first came to light in December 2014, the term was introduced to other sports following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Quoting a breach of the Olympic Truce by the Russian government in which Belarus was complicit, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended banning all teams, officials and competitors from Russia and Belarus from being involved in sport, but where this was not possible, to allow individuals to compete in a neutral capacity". So, I don't understand reasons why I can't link to this Wikipage in such cases other than a slight difference in title. I agree that it would be better solution to create new Wikipage entitled "Individual Neutral Athletes". But, unfortunately, English is not my first language either. So, let's hope that somebody who know English better will create such Wikipage in near future. Hyperion82 (talk) 07:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I understand the meaning is the same but the name is different and that makes lots of differences. one federation (World Athletics) created this name for its own purpose while so many other federations (at least 4 for now, Wrestling, Taekwondo, Judo and Cycling and I'm sure there will be more) are using Individual Neutral Athletes which is recommended by the IOC. I just don't think that's right to link so many federations to just one, it should be the opposite. 2 solutions come to my mind. first moving this page to Individual Neutral Athletes which is more common "now". second instead of linking directly redirecting Individual Neutral Athletes to Authorised Neutral Athletes, that makes more sense at least and whenever we created that page we don't have to go back and fix all links. Sports2021 (talk) 10:43, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think ANA and INA are the same to justify moving this page. ANA has origins in athletics doping and INA looks specifically linked to the Ukraine invasion. I also think (might be wrong) teams would have been accepted under ANA but maybe it never happened - see OAR as proof of potential; but teams are not permitted in INA:
 * "2. Teams of athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport cannot be considered." (source)
 * As I quasi-mentioned in an earlier topic, maybe move this to Authorised neutral athletes or Neutral athletes, of which individual neutral athletes would be, to save having multiple articles essentially for the same topic. Just a suggestion, not a vote. Rally Wonk (talk) 16:54, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Are u suggesting having two articles, one for AIN and one for ANA? or have a merged one under a new name? I would love to see more inputs from other users but personally I suggest something more general. like "Neutral athletes in sport competitions" (or something like that) Sports2021 (talk) 22:13, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
 * while rallying has been added here already, I'd support merging them all together. Pelmeen10 (talk) 11:10, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion on Russian and Belarus nationalities as independent athletes
There is an ongoing discussion that could affect this article. It is concerning Russian and Belarus nationalities and flag icons on some Olympic-related articles. Please join in the discussion at WikiProject Olympics to help sort things out. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:31, 17 April 2024 (UTC)