International Golf Federation latest to lift Russian and Belarusian athlete ban – Insidethegames.biz

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The International Golf Federation (IGF) has become the latest governing body to lift a ban on Russian and Belarusian players from its competitions after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) eased its stance in March.
Russia and Belarus had been largely frozen out of international sport since the start of the war in Ukraine, but the IOC issued fresh recommendations in March allowing International Federations to permit their athletes as individual neutrals provided they do not support the conflict and are not affiliated to the military.
However, not all International Federations have done so.
Athletics, badminton, basketball, equestrian, sport climbing and surfing have all opted to maintain the measures in place since the start of the war in Ukraine.
However, the IOC-recognised governing body for golf joins archery, canoeing, cycling, fencing, judo, modern pentathlon, shooting, skateboarding, table tennis, taekwondo, triathlon and wrestling in lifting a ban on Russian and Belarusian competitors.
The IGF said its Board had considered the IOC’s updated recommendations, and opted to allow individual Russian and Belarusian players to compete at its events, but not teams of athletes.
Individual neutral athletes and support personnel cannot compete if they “actively support” the war in Ukraine, and are also banned if they are “contracted to the Russian or Belarusian military or national security agencies”.
They must “must meet all anti-doping requirements applicable to them”.
Russian and Belarusian flags, anthems, colours and other national symbols are barred from IGF events.
The IGF said it has “deferred any decision” on the Paris 2024 Olympics until a final decision is taken by the IOC, and “reaffirmed its unwavering support and solidarity with our Ukrainian athletes and Federation who are confronted daily with terrible hardship due to this senseless war”.
It insisted its updated stance is “consistent with the decision made by the IGF Board in March 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia”
The IGF is led by ten-time major winner Annika Sörenstam of Sweden.
It was founded in 1958, and helped to oversee golf’s return to the Olympic Games after a 112-year absence at Rio 2016.
Its objectives are to encourage the international development of golf, and it also organises biennial amateur team championships for the Eisenhower Trophy for men and the Espirito Santo Trophy for women.
Qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympics in golf is based on the Olympic Golf Rankings, derived from the Official World Golf Rankings.
No Russian or Belarusian player is currently in the top 60 of the men’s or women’s Olympic Golf Rankings.
Maria Verchenova is the only Russian golfer to have played at the Olympics since the sport’s return, finishing joint-16th in the women’s tournament at Rio 2016.
Critics argue Russian and Belarusian athletes would be used for political purposes by both nations and there should be no place for either country in international sport while the war is ongoing, but opponents in Russia and Belarus have claimed the conditions laid out by the IOC are “discriminatory”.
Patrick Burke is a reporter at insidethegames.biz, having joined the team in 2021. He started out as the programme editor for local non-league football club Cammell Laird 1907 in 2014 at the age of 15, and went on to serve as the club’s media officer for six years, all on a voluntary basis. He studied history at the University of Sheffield from 2017, graduating with a first-class honours degree in 2020 where his dissertation was on the People’s Olympiad in Barcelona in 1936. Whilst at Sheffield, Burke was sports editor and then deputy editor of Forge Press, one of the United Kingdom’s leading student newspapers. Burke spent a summer studying at Waseda University in Tokyo in 2018, and during sixth form travelled to Sierra Leone on an immersion retreat as well as the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
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