Authorised Neutral Athletes

The flag/logo of ANA for IAAF events (2017–2020).
The flag/logo of ANA for World Athletics events (since 2021).
For European Athletics events, ANA competes with the organisational flag.

Authorised Neutral Athlete (ANA) and Individual Neutral Athlete (AIN) are a capacity under which athletes can compete at international sporting competitions without representing their nations, as is standard convention under the Olympic Charter.[1] As of August 2022, only Russian and Belarusian athletes of some sports have competed or are competing within the ANA capacity.

Originally introduced in athletics in 2017 following the Russian doping scandal which first came to light in December 2014,[2][3][4] the term was introduced to other sports following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Quoting a breach of the Olympic Truce by the Russian government in which Belarus was complicit, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended suspending all teams, officials and competitors from Russia and Belarus from being involved in sport due to security concerns, while allowing individuals to compete in a neutral capacity.[5]

  1. ^ "Background Information to the decision of the IOC Executive Board concerning the participation of Russian athletes in the Olympic Games Rio 2016".
  2. ^ "IAAF World Championships London 2017 | WCH 17 | World Athletics". www.worldathletics.org. Retrieved 2022-08-07.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "A Londra c'è un mondo di atletica!" (in Italian). fidal.it. Retrieved 31 July 2017. ...e l'ANA (Authorised Neutral Athlete) di Mariya Kuchina maritata Lasitskene e di Sergey Shubenkov, la caucasica e il siberiano che, senza bandiera, riportano in scena una Russia ancora in via di espiazione.
  5. ^ "IOC EB recommends no participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials".