Why it’s impossible for the Olympics to be politically neutral

Why it’s impossible for the Olympics to be politically neutral

As the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy play out, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is once again insisting that any sport under its flag must remain politically neutral. The Olympic charter grounds this position in its fifth “fundamental principle of Olympism”, which states that sports organisations within the Olympic movement “shall apply political neutrality”. Yet in recent years, athletes from Russia and Belarus have been…