A failure to guarantee the safety of canoeists from Russia and Belarus was cited by the Danish Canoe Federation as the reason for their omission at the ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships here.

Konietzko said it was also the determining factor in their no-shows at the recent Canoe Sprint World Championships in German city Duisburg and the Junior and Under-23 Canoe Sprint World Championships in the Italian town of Auronzo di Cadore in July.

The ICF voted in April to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under a neutral banner, provided they do not support the war in Ukraine and are not affiliated with the military.

But they have yet to return to major events and face missing another Olympic qualifier in the Canoe Slalom World Championships, scheduled to be held from September 19 to 24 in English capital London.

Konietzko said it was down to host organisers to demonstrate that they can guarantee their safety.

"We made the decision as an ICF Board with a huge majority to allow Russians to come back as neutral athletes under special conditions," Konietzko told insidethegames.

"But we introduced a paragraph where organisers can refuse participation if they cannot ensure the security of athletes and competition.

"We don’t want to mess up our competition.

"Some organisers decided to take this option and refuse neutrals taking part because they cannot ensure security and we have to accept it.

"It’s part of our decision but I expect maybe for our Stand-Up Paddling World Championships in Thailand [in November] that Russians will be allowed as neutrals and they have to go through our eligibility process.

"It’s completely up to the organisers to make a decision so we know that they are under financial pressure because to introduce security measures costs a lot of money and all of our organisers have a very tight budget.

"We don’t want to force them to allow or not allow Russians.

"It’s a completely independent decision of our organisers."

There remains a chance that athletes from Russia and Belarus would be secure quotas for Paris 2024 via the European canoe sprint qualifier, due to be held from May 8 to 9 in 2024 in Szeged in Hungary.

Konietzko warned Governments against "any political interference" in the permission of Russian and Belarusian athletes.

"If the Government is saying to us, we cannot allow Russians to compete then it is a violation of being independent of the federation," said Konietzko.

"That’s something we wouldn’t accept and we would maybe consider to withdraw a competition.

"As long as our hosts can justify and explain why they cannot ensure safety of competition or athletes we will have to accept it.

"That was the case with Germany, that’s the case with Italy and that’s the case here.

"There are eight months to go [until the European canoe sprint qualifier] and we hope that until then the war will be over but it’s up to the Hungarians to confirm the safety of athletes."

The ICF’s decision to lift the outright ban on Russia and Belarus came just one day after the cancellation of the Canoe Sprint Ukrainian Cup in Uman because of a missile strike on the city.

Konietzko defended the timing of the announcement, insisting there is "no good moment to take such a difficult decision".

"It was not easy for all of us to find the right decision but the sport is part of a democratic system," said the German official.

"We have to consider what is the majority and have to accept the majority.

"We exchanged arguments.

"There were difficult arguments but a huge majority of our Board members finally agreed to allow that under very strict conditions Russians and Belarusians can come back as neutrals."

Konietzko said the ICF’s commission set up to check the eligibility of athletes from the two countries consisted of "three experienced stakeholders of our sport".

"Athletes have to sign a declaration that they do not get any funds from the Russian army so CSKA," said Konietzko.

"We put this in place from the beginning of the war so that means February 2022.

"They declare with significance that they will accept the decision of eligibility check if our commissions realises that athletes made wrong statement in regards to the support of the war or connections to CSKA they will be suspended and cannot participate as neutrals."