Olympics has not solved the Russian enigma, they have just created more problems

Threats of legal action over LA28 qualifying concerned sports and convinced IOC to lift sanctions, but many European countries will resist reinstatement decision and fears over doping persist

Russia may be struggling to wear down Ukraine on the battlefield, but in the corridors of sports power the war of attrition it has been fighting for more than four years is definitely beginning to pay off.

The International Olympic Committee’s announcement yesterday that they were scrapping the sanctions introduced following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and also provisionally lifting its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee, imposed in October 2023, represented a major propaganda coup for Vladimir Putin’s regime.

The fact that the decision was taken only a day after Russia had launched a deadly missile and drone attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, killing at least 28 people, showed just how serious President Kirsty Coventry plans to be about following the new Olympic Charter amendment compelling the IOC to follow the principle of “neutrality at all times”.