The World Organization of Athletics has lifted the eight-year disqualification of the Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF), but athletes from the Russian Federation and Belarus will still not participate in the competition.
The International Association of Athletics Federations expelled the RFLA from its ranks in November 2015, responding to an investigation into the existence of a state system of doping support in Russia.
Since then, Russian athletes could compete only under a neutral flag, and only those who were not involved in doping violations were allowed to participate. But the World Athletics Council voted to maintain the blanket ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes, which came into effect shortly after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
- In 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA banned Russia from the World Championships and Olympics for 4 years due to a doping scandal — 298 Russian athletes were suspected of violating anti-doping rules.