BACH BACKS ANTIWAR RUSSIANS

Russian athletes who do not endorse their country's war in Ukraine could be accepted back into international sports, IOC president Thomas Bach, pictured, said in an interview published Friday. “It's about having athletes with a Russian passport who do not support the war back in competition,” Bach told Italian daily Corriere della Sera. Most sports followed International Olympic Committee advice in February and banned Russian teams and athletes from events within days of the country's invasion of Ukraine. With Russians starting to miss events that feed into qualifying for the 2024 Paris Olympics, an exile extending into next year could effectively become a wider ban from Paris. Bach did not suggest how athletes could express opposition to the war when dissent and criticism of the Russian military risks jail sentences of several years.