Which Sports Organizations Have Penalized Russia?

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We’re tracking the sports world’s responses to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

ImageCredit…James Hill for The New York TimesVictor Mather

Published March 1, 2022Updated March 2, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted outrage and backlash in many parts of the world — including in sports.

Numerous international sports leagues and organizations have dropped Russia and Russian athletes from competition, in some cases after pressure from their own members. Belarus, which allowed Russia to use its territory to stage the invasion, has also faced some sanctions.

The invasion has led to something that Russia’s state-sponsored doping program never fully did: the banishment, at least partially, of Russia from global sports.

We’re tracking how various leagues and organizations have responded. Here’s the latest.

Russian athletes at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Games in February. They competed under the banner of the Russian Olympic Committee.Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Organizers of the Winter Paralympics will allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete when the Games begin this week. The executive board of the International Paralympic Committee declared that the Russian and Belarusian athletes would compete under the Paralympic flag and any medals they won would not be counted in the Games’ medal table.

But the board declined to take more significant action, like banning the athletes. The punishments are similar to those already in place against Russia for its involvement in a state-sponsored doping scheme.

Earlier, the International Olympic Committee had recommended that athletes from Russia and Belarus be barred from sporting events.

That declaration, though, came more than two years before the next Summer Games, in Paris in 2024, so its stance could change, perhaps depending on whether and how the war is resolved.

— David Waldstein and Victor Mather

The Russian club Spartak Moscow has been banned from international competition.Credit…Leszek Szymanski/EPA, via Shutterstock

Soccer’s international governing body, FIFA, took some of the most decisive action in its history, kicking all Russian club and national teams out of international competition. The ruling means that Russia is out of World Cup qualifying; the country had been two wins away from advancing to the 2022 Cup in Qatar.

The ban on Russian clubs affects one team, Spartak Moscow. That team had been in the last 16 of the Europa League, but now its opponent in that round, RB Leipzig of Germany, will advance to the quarterfinal.

At first, FIFA had opted for sanctions similar to those in place for the recently completed Winter Olympics: a ban on Russia’s name, flag and anthem and a neutral site for its games. But strong objections from numerous countries, and declarations by Sweden, France, England, the United States and others that they would not play Russia in any circumstances, pushed FIFA to take stronger action.

UEFA, soccer’s European governing body, last week stripped St. Petersburg, the home of the Russian energy giant Gazprom, of this year’s Champions League final. The game will be played in France instead. UEFA then went a step further in breaking its deep ties to Russia: It announced that it had ended a sponsorship agreement with Gazprom. The deal was worth a reported $50 million a year to European soccer.

— Victor Mather

Anna Shcherbakova won a gold medal at the Beijing Games but will not be able to defend her 2021 world title under a new ban.Credit…James Hill for The New York Times

The International Skating Union, figure skating’s world governing body, barred Russian and Belarusian athletes from competition, sanctions that will apparently prohibit Russia, the world’s dominant figure skating country, from performing at the world championships in three weeks.

The absence of Russian skaters would significantly impact the world championships, which begin March 21 in Montpellier, France. If nothing else, it would avoid a repeat of the joyless, numb moment at the Beijing Olympics, where Kamila Valieva, the 15-year-old favorite in women’s singles whose positive test for a banned substance came to light during the Games, crumbled amid the intense scrutiny and was left in tears after criticism by her coach.

But the ban would also keep Anna Shcherbakova, 17, the Olympic champion, from defending her 2021 world title and prevent Valieva from a redemptive performance.

The International Skating Union said in a statement that no athletes from Russia or Belarus, which has supported Russia’s invasion, would be allowed to compete until further notice, reiterating “its solidarity with all those affected by the conflict in Ukraine.”

— Jeré Longman

Daniil Medvedev of Russia took over the No. 1 ranking on the ATP Tour this week.Credit…Alana Holmberg for The New York Times

The organizations that oversee professional tennis will prohibit Russia and Belarus from competing in team events but will allow players from those countries to participate in tournaments without any national identification.

The announcement amounted to an attempt to separate players born in Russia and Belarus from their nations, a move that Elina Svitolina, Ukraine’s top-ranked professional at No. 15 on the women’s tour, had urged her sport to pursue.

The men’s and women’s professional tours also suspended a tournament scheduled for Moscow in October.

Enforcing penalties on countries is a complicated issue for tennis, especially because seven organizations oversee the sport and its major events. For much of the year, players operate as independent contractors who compete for themselves rather than their countries. Most have only limited interaction with the national federations that run tennis in their homelands and work with private coaches and managers.

— Matthew Futterman

The N.H.L. suspended business dealings with Russia, but not Russian players.Credit…Justin Tang/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

The International Ice Hockey Federation banned Russian and Belarusian teams, including for this year’s world championships in May, and said it would not stage its junior world championship in Russia later this year.

The National Hockey League suspended business dealings with Russia, but not with Russian players, including the star Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals. Ovechkin said, “Please, no more war,” recently, but has not explicitly condemned Russia’s war effort and has supported President Vladimir V. Putin in the past.

Hockey executives in the Czech Republic, Finland and Sweden said that Russia would not be allowed to participate in this year’s Euro Hockey Tour, and executives signaled that they were looking to replace Russia permanently.

— Victor Mather and Alan Blinder

Mariya Lasitskene won gold in the women's high jump at the Olympics in 2021 competing under the Russian Olympic Committee flag.Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

The world governing body for track and field barred athletes and officials from Russia and Belarus from events “for the foreseeable future.”

The competitions include this summer’s World Athletics Championships, which will take place in Oregon, as well as the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia.

Russia’s athletics federation has already been suspended since 2015 because of doping violations, though athletes who can prove they are clean have been allowed to compete, unaffiliated from Russia. Those athletes will now be blocked from events.

— Matthew Futterman

Wladimir Klitschko, left, and his brother Vitali Klitschko, former professional boxers, at city hall in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sunday. Vitali Klitschko is the mayor.Credit…Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press

Some Ukrainian boxers and ex-boxers have said they would take up arms for their country against the Russian invasion.

They include the former boxing heavyweight world champions Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko, who are brothers; another former champion, Vasiliy Lomachenko; and a current champ, Oleksandr Usyk.

Vitali Klitschko is the mayor of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.

— Victor Mather

Formula 1 canceled its Russian Grand Prix. Nikita Mazepin, the Russian driver for Haas, will be allowed to race as a neutral competitior.Credit…Joan Monfort/Associated Press

The ban imposed by the International Skating Union, which will have a significant impact on the figure skating world, also covers speedskating; the long-track world championships start on Thursday in Norway, and the short-track championships are later this month in Montreal.

The International Cycling Union, as part of a broad range of measures, banned teams from Russia and Belarus from international competition. The measure will effectively shut down a professional team co-sponsored by Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled energy company, that normally makes appearances in top-level events that include the Giro d’Italia.

The World Rugby union also suspended Russia and Belarus. Formula 1’s Russian Grand Prix, scheduled for September in Sochi, Russia, has been canceled, and the International Judo Federation suspended Russian President Vladimir V. Putin as its honorary president.

The Russian F1 driver Nikita Mazepin will be allowed to race for Haas as a neutral competitor under rules announced by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, motorsport’s world governing body.

— Victor Mather and Ian Austen