The first medal for any Russian athlete at the 2024 Olympics — technically not representing their country but competing as neutrals due to the war on Ukraine — was won in tennis on Sunday. Mirra Andreeva and Diana Shnaider earned a silver medal in women’s doubles.
Andreeva and Shnaider lost the final to Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini of Italy with scores of 2-6, 6-1, 10-7 in a match tiebreaker. In Olympic doubles, a first-to-10 tiebreaker is used instead of a third set.
Athletes from Russia and Belarus are competing at the Paris Games as Individual Neutral Athletes, known by the French acronym AIN.
These nations were banned by the International Olympic Committee from team sports at the Paris Games because of the attack on Ukraine that started in February 2022.
Individual athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports were allowed to compete as neutrals if they qualified and were approved for entry to the Olympics.
“I’m not going to answer anything about politics here. … I’m here to talk about tennis,” Shnaider said at the post-match news conference, where both Russians wore plain white T-shirts.
When asked about competing as part of the AIN group rather than representing Russia, Andreeva responded: “I have no way to answer this. For me, honestly, it doesn’t matter. I just go out there, I play and I fight. And this week, we played and we fight together.”
AIN athletes are not allowed to wear uniforms that show their country of origin, so Andreeva and Shnaider wore all-white outfits on the court, with no flag or other marking related to Russia.
Shnaider mentioned earlier in the tournament that she was wearing the same white outfit in Paris that she used at Wimbledon last month, where white clothing is required.
On Friday, Ivan Litvinovich and Viyaleta Bardzilouskaya, both from Belarus, won the first medals by AIN athletes at the Paris Olympics, both in trampoline. Litvinovich won gold in the men’s event, and Bardzilouskaya earned silver in the women’s event. Yauheni Zalati, also from Belarus, won a silver in rowing on Saturday.
