20 athletes will be competing in the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics without their national flags, according to NBC news.
For two consecutive Olympic Games, Russian and Belarusian athletes will compete as Individual Neutral Athletes (AINs), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced in September 2025. This means that they are unable to attend the opening ceremony and participate in team sports.
As it was the case for the Paris 2024 Olympics, the Individual Neutral Athlete Eligibility Review Panel (AINERP), consisting of IOC members and International Sports Federation representatives, evaluated and sent invitations to Russian and Belarusian athletes who met the eligibility criteria for participation.
Eligibility criteria included not supporting the war and or having no contracts with their countries’ military or national security agencies.
It has been ten years since a Russian flag was flown in the Olympic Games. The 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics were the last time Russian athletes were able to represent their own country. Between 2016 and 2020, they were banned due to the revealing of a scandalous state-sponsored shopping campaign. Following an invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been excluded from multiple international games, and Belarus too, since 2024.
Kirsy Conventry, president of IOC, without directly addressing AINs, said: “We understand politics and we know we don’t operate in a vacuum, but our game is sport. That means keeping sport a neutral ground. A place where every athlete can compete freely, without being held back by the politics or divisions of their governments.”
Can competitions between nations ever hold back on politics?
The news of the U.S. sending ICE personnel to Milan has led to an instant backlash and public protests against their presence, prompted by their recent immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota.
While the primary goal of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents, an arm of ICE that would be in Milan, is security for U.S. delegations overseas, the angry response from Italian politicians and citizens revealed what ICE is synonymous with internationally – fear and injustice.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on the social media platform, X: “Obviously, ICE does not conduct immigration enforcement operations in foreign countries.”
Another influence of ICE in Italy was seen in the renaming of the U.S. hospitality space in Milan. USA TODAY reported on Feb. 1 that U.S. Figure Skating, USA Hockey and U.S. Speedskating changed the name of their hospitality space from the Ice House to The Winter House.
Coventry was asked about ICE and Epstein files at a news conference in Milan on Feb 1. She commented, “I think anything that is distracting from these Games is sad, right? But we’ve learned over the many years… there’s always been something that has taken the lead, leading up to the Games.”
As the most spread-out Olympics, with the new winter sports ski mountaineering, the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will be running from Feb 6 to 22.
