World Athletics Keeps Russia and Belarus Locked Out of Global Competition

Russian and Belarusian track and field athletes stay shut out of international competition. World Athletics said so again on Friday, keeping the sanctions it first put in place after Russia invaded Ukraine in March 2022.

The decision came out of the 241st World Athletics Council meeting, held online on July 1 and 2. Council members were handed options for softening the ban, including what the governing body called a “conditional pathway back into international competition.” They passed.

“We presented options for the Council to consider on this matter, however, the original decision remains on the sanctions that protect the integrity and fairness of our competitions, with no tangible movement towards peace negotiations having materialised,” said Sebastian Coe, the World Athletics president.

The ban covers athletes, officials and support staff from both countries. It has been revisited in 2023, in 2025, and again in March.

Out of step with other federations

World Athletics is now an outlier. Seven other International Federations have already brought Russian and Belarusian athletes back in some form, according to The Sports Examiner. The International Olympic Committee lifted its remaining restrictions on Belarusian athletes in May, about two months before this meeting. Belarus was used as a staging ground for the 2022 invasion. A small group of Russian para athletes competed under their national flag at the Milano Cortina Winter Paralympics earlier this year.

The Russian Athletics Federation has a separate history of trouble with the sport’s governing body. It sat under a years-long suspension tied to the state-sponsored doping scandal that broke open in 2016, covering activity from 2011 to 2015. Doping-related sanctions were lifted in March 2025, according to The Sports Examiner. The invasion-related ban is what still stands.

The Ukraine factor

Council members pointed to the state of athletics inside Ukraine as part of their reasoning. Ukrainian athletes have struggled to hold domestic meets regularly, which hurts their qualification standards and ranking points. Coaches, support staff and training facilities have taken a hit.

A dedicated fund set up in 2022 has helped, but the Council said “there is no doubt the ability of Ukraine and its athletes to train and compete remains severely compromised.”

Russia pushes back

The Russian Athletics Federation called the ruling “yet another discriminatory decision” that “runs counter to Olympic principles and to current trends in global sport.”

The federation zeroed in on younger competitors. “An entire generation of young athletes has no opportunity to compete at a high international level,” its statement read, pointing to youth and junior athletes it said are “medal contenders at the European Championships, World Championships and Youth Olympic Games.”

The federation said it would use “all available mechanisms” to get its athletes back on start lines. An appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport is a likely next step, per The Sports Examiner.

For now, Russian and Belarusian athletes stay on the sidelines, including the 2027 World Athletics Road Running Championships in Yangzhou next March. Coe’s phrasing left a door open. “No tangible movement towards peace negotiations.” If that changes, the sanctions could too.