Russian ski jumpers will not be competing at the Olympics. © APA/afp / JONATHAN NACKSTRAND

No Olympic start: Russians sue against exclusion

The Russian Ski Federation is appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over the exclusion of its athletes from Olympic qualifying competitions.

06 November 2025

From: apa/sn

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) confirmed on Thursday evening that it had received the appeal filed on Wednesday. The appeal, which specifically challenges a decision by the International Ski Federation (FIS), also comes from twelve Russian athletes and the Russian Paralympic Committee.

The Russian appeal before the CAS concerns a FIS decision from October, according to which Russian and Belarusian athletes are not allowed to compete as neutral individual athletes in FIS qualification competitions for the 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo.

FIS boss Johan Eliasch has spoken out against Russian athletes. © APA / EXPA/JOHANN GRODER

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is allowing athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete as individual neutral athletes, as it did at the 2024 Paris Olympics. However, it is leaving it to the international federations of the individual sports to decide whether to apply this to their qualifying competitions. The FIS, the responsible world governing body for alpine skiing, ski jumping, cross-country skiing, and Nordic combined, among others, has decided against it.

Background to the sanctions

The backdrop for the sanctions against Russia and Belarus is the war of aggression against Ukraine, which has been going on for more than three years. The IOC also suspended Russia's Olympic Committee for accepting the four annexed Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhia. The IOC considered this a violation of the Olympic Charter.