The Winter Paralympics has banned athletes from Russia and Belarus from the Games in Beijing after an international backlash to Wednesday’s decision to let them compete as neutrals.
Ahead of the Games’ opening ceremony on Friday, the International Paralympic Committee had said that Russian and Belarusian athletes could participate under the Paralympic flag, and that their nations would not feature on the medal table. That decision brought widespread condemnation, not least from Britain where the sport secretary Nadine Dorries called on the IPC to “urgently reconsider” in the context of Russia’s deadly invasion of Ukraine, a war which Belarus has aided.
