Neutral Athlete Wins Group's First Gold

The neutral collective of athletes won its first gold medal at the Paris Olympics on Friday. Ivan Litvinovich was not allowed to float down the River Seine on a boat during the Games' opening ceremony a week ago—just like all 32 athletes from Russia and Belarus whose Olympic team identity has been made almost invisible because of their nations' military invasion of Ukraine. When standing on the top step of the podium, Litvinovich was prohibited from hearing the Belarus anthem, the AP reports. Playing instead was a nondescript, wordless tune commissioned by the International Olympic Committee.

These are the Olympic rules of engagement for the 32 athletes who were vetted and approved—and accepted their invitations—to come to France and compete for the team that's not a team. Earlier Friday, when the first of them won a medal, it was not the international sports signifier BLR for Belarus next to Viyaleta Bardzilouskaya's name. Bardzilouskaya took silver in women's trampoline for AIN, the French acronym for Individual Neutral Athlete, whose collective medals are not tallied on the official team standings. Almost 2½ years after Russia invaded Ukraine with backing from neighboring Belarus, the two countries mostly feel like pariahs in world sports.

The IOC moved within days of the invasion to urge Olympic sports bodies to pull upcoming events from Russia and Belarus and remove their teams and athletes, for reasons of security and integrity of competitions. Last year, the IOC settled on its Paris Olympics policy: No Russian or Belarusian teams, which by definition represent a nation, would be allowed, but selected athletes would be invited. They must have passed vetting first by their sport's governing body, then the IOC, to have not supported the war nor had funding or links to military or state security agencies. Russia has 15 athletes in the Games, Belarus 17, per the AP. They're allowed no flag, no anthem, no team uniforms in national flag colors, basically, stripping them of national identity. (More 2024 Paris Olympics stories.)