Vadym Gutzeit, President of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, Matviy Bidnyi, Acting Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine, and Yuriy Kopytko, President of the Ukrainian Wrestling Federation, have joined forces to call for the exclusion of wrestlers from Russia and Belarus from the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

"Among the Russian and Belarusian athletes who have received Olympic licences for Paris 2024, there are those who support the war in Ukraine," the Ukrainian NOC said in a statement.

Specifically, the statement refers to Vanessa Kaladzinskaya, Zaurbek Sidakov, Zaur Uguev, Milad Alirzaev, Sergey Semenov, Nadezhda Sokolova, Alina Kasabieva, Khanum Veliev, Natalia Malysheva and Artur Naifonov in relation to alleged violations of neutrality requirements.

"The heads of Ukrainian sports institutions call on international partners to take measures to comply with the recommendations of the International Olympic Committee on the neutral status of athletes from the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus and not to allow these persons to participate in international competitions," the Ukraine statement added.

Abdulrashid Sadulaev, a two-time Olympic freestyle wrestling champion from Russia, has been prohibited from participating in the qualifying tournament, held in Baku, for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

"After another pseudo-check, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has published new lists of athletes banned from  international tournaments. Unfortunately, the captain of our team and two-time Olympic champion Abdulrashid Sadulaev was among them," the Russian Wrestling Federation said.

Seven Russian freestyle wrestlers were also refused visas by the Romanian embassy in Russia. Only Magomedov (61kg), Rashidov (65kg) and Kurbanov (92kg) were granted visas.