The South Korean Olympic Committee will request data on athletes from Russia

Seoul, February 1 – The Korea Olympic Committee for Sports in South Korea (KSOC) will request additional information from the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) regarding inviting athletes from Russia and Belarus to the Asian Games in 2023, as it believes their participation may cause certain problems. Yonhap News Agency reports. Link to sources.

Earlier, the OCA invited athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in the Asian Games, which will be held in Hangzhou, China from September 23 to October 8, 2023. The OCA said it believes in the “unifying power of sport and that all athletes, regardless of their nationality or passport their travel, they have to be able to compete.”

The Olympic Council of Asia notified its 45 member states that Russia and Belarus will participate in the Asian Games on Monday without any prior consultations, according to the committee. The council said that 500 athletes from the two countries would not be eligible to win medals and also promised to ensure that Asian athletes are not placed at a disadvantage with regard to their qualification for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

KSOC plans to send an official letter to the OCA this week asking for further clarification on how participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes will be organized.

The mere fact that non-Asian athletes will participate in the Asian Games is not unprecedented. For example, the OCA invited athletes from Australia and New Zealand to the 2017 Asian Winter Games in Sapporo, Japan. They also did not receive any medals.

At the end of February 2022, the International Olympic Committee recommended that, due to the situation in Ukraine, international sports federations not allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as precautionary measures. In December, the closing declaration of the Olympic Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland, spoke of global support for an initiative by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) to review these safeguards.