The International Ski Mountaineering Federation (ISMF) granted five Russian athletes the approval to compete internationally, including in qualifying events for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.
The licenses were issued in early December to Andrey Fyodorov (35), Nikita Filippov (22), and Daria Zinchenko (20), who will be eligible to participate in the 2024-2025 World Cup and World Championship, both crucial qualifiers for the Winter Games.
Earlier this year, Pavel Yakimov (32) and Varvara Prokhorova (33) had already received similar permissions from the ISMF. As stated by ISMF vice-president Pavel Shabalin, “Five athletes, three men and two women, were issued licences for the 2024/2025 season to participate in the World Cup and the World Championship, which are qualifying tournaments for the 2026 Olympics. Each athlete personally declared themselves. There will be two disciplines at the Olympic Games: sprint and mixed relay. But we still need to qualify.”
Mikhail Degtyarev, president of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), expressed optimism for the upcoming year, declaring, “I want to state with full confidence that 2025 will be a successful and positive year for Russian sport. As Minister of Sports and President of the Committee, I will do everything in my power to achieve the set goals.”
Ski mountaineering, which involves mountain climbing on skis, downhill skiing, and other mountaineering techniques, will debut as an Olympic sport in the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. This comes after the sport’s introduction at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne.
The approval for these athletes follows years of sanctions imposed on Russian and Belarusian athletes after the IOC recommended in February 2022 that they be banned from international sports due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
This decision led to a blanket exclusion of Russian athletes from global competitions. However, in March 2023, the IOC allowed athletes from both nations to compete under neutral status, provided they did not support the military operations and followed certain guidelines.
In October 2023, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) for violating the Olympic Charter, specifically through its inclusion of sports organizations from annexed Ukrainian territories. As a result, Russian athletes had to compete as neutral individuals at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The future of Russian participation in the international sports arena depends on the leadership of the IOC, as Thomas Bach, the current IOC president, will soon be succeeded. Potential presidential candidates like Juan Antonio Samaranch, who favors Russia’s return, and Sebastian Coe, who has maintained a strict exclusion policy, will shape the direction of Russian athletes’ involvement in the global sports community.
