An Empty Seat in Budapest: World Athletics Holds Firm on Russia Ban, and a Legal Battle Without an Ending

On the final night of the inaugural Ultimate Championship in Budapest, while the lights of the Puskás Aréna were still on, Sebastian Coe walked into the press conference room. He is the President of World Athletics, an Olympic champion over 1,500 metres, and for nearly a decade now he has been the most visible figure representing the hardest line in international sport.

He did not speak about the medals handed out that night. He did not speak about the female athletes who had just finished their events in front of me a few hours earlier. He spoke about something else. He spoke about a country that was not here, and, according to him, would continue not to be.

"Our position won't change," Coe told reporters on the final day of the inaugural Ultimate Championship.

The sentence was short enough to become a pull-quote. Long enough to carry a fight that has lasted more than three years. And vague enough that behind it lies a trial nobody in that room knew exactly when would open.

That was the first thing I noticed. Not the content of the sentence, but the silence around it.

In the second row on the left, a foreign reporter asked Coe whether he could reveal the legal strategy World Athletics was pursuing before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Coe answered with a thin smile: "I don't think our legal teams would be particularly thankful if I laid out our approach."

The room laughed. Thirty seconds later, the story moved to another issue. A few reporters had already filed and closed their laptops. But I stayed in the seventh row, and what I was thinking about was not Coe, and not the lawyers.

What I was thinking about were the women who were not in that press room that night.

CONTEXT: A BAN BUILT ON TWO LAYERS

To understand why World Athletics' position is so rigid that it is almost isolated, we need to review a little history. The ban on Russian and Belarusian athletics that Coe restated in Budapest is not a single decision. It is the stacking of two different rationales, built at two different moments, each resting on its own legal foundation.

The first layer is doping. The Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) has been suspended since 2026 after a state-sponsored doping scandal was exposed. Since then, Russian athletes have been able to compete only as neutrals, under the ANA (Authorised Neutral Athlete) label, and only after passing a rigorous set of verification conditions assessed by an independent World Athletics panel. This is a complex, expensive mechanism, and conceptually one of the most unusual constructs in modern sport.

The second layer appeared in 2026. After Russia launched its military campaign in Ukraine, World Athletics removed Russian and Belarusian athletes entirely from all international competition. That ban does not distinguish between athletes who doped and those who did not. It is a ban by nationality, not by conduct. And that is precisely the point the Russian side is exploiting in its CAS filing.

The ANA mechanism was once considered a compromise. Now it is completely frozen for Russian athletes. There is no neutral pathway in operation until the situation changes.

This is the core distinction I want to record here. When we talk about "the ban on Russian athletics", we are in fact talking about two different things at once: a historic doping penalty that has not been lifted, and a political ban issued in 2026. Both layers are necessary for the World Athletics position, and for that very reason, both are being challenged in different ways.

In Budapest, Coe did not address the two layers separately. He fused them into a single concept: integrity.

"This isn't about politics or passports. It's about the integrity of competition," he said. Thirty seconds later he added: "From the age of 18, I believe that every position I've taken... it's about integrity."

That statement is notable for two reasons. First, it places a geopolitical ban inside a moral framework of sport. Second, it anchors itself in a personal biography spanning four decades, turning Coe's reputation into part of the policy argument.

Both moves are deliberate. Neither is a random remark from a press conference.

CORE: THE INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURE OF AN EXCLUSION

After years of covering these events, I have learned that the most important statements rarely live in the most quoted sentence. They live in the gaps between sentences. In Budapest, the largest gap was the absence of any neutral mechanism being mentioned at all.

World Athletics is currently one of the strictest international federations in the entire Olympic system. While several federations have gradually reopened a path for Russian and Belarusian athletes under different models, World Athletics retains a full nationality ban. Coe described this, without modesty, as "one of the toughest positions of any international federation".

But this position rests on a specific institutional structure, and that structure can be described more precisely by comparing it with the case of the International Skating Union (ISU).

The ISU has chosen a different path. It briefly opened a neutral pathway for Russian figure skaters, allowing them to enter some international events as individuals not representing a state. That path, however, was closed for certain specific cases. The most notable was Kamila Valieva, the young Russian figure skater who stunned the 2026 Beijing Winter Olympics and was later linked to a prohibited substance.

Valieva had neutral status. Then that status was revoked. That is an important fact, and I will return to it below.

Back to World Athletics. There is one thing I want to record clearly, because it is often muddled in discussions like this: at present, World Athletics operates no neutral mechanism comparable to the ISU model. Not that none is planned. Not that one is under review. None exists. The 2026 nationality ban has fully replaced the old ANA mechanism, and a new ANA mechanism has not been rebuilt.

This is exactly the point the Russian filing is targeting. Russia is not suing World Athletics over the suspension of RusAF since 2026 — it has no legal basis for that. Russia is suing over the 2026 nationality ban, arguing that it exceeds World Athletics' authority, and over what Russia describes as exclusion from "World Athletics decision-making processes".

Read that last phrase carefully. It is not a complaint about athletes' right to compete. It is a complaint about institutional representation. This is a dimension rarely mentioned in coverage, but it matters in the long run, because it concerns whether Russian athletics can return to the decision-making table, not merely to the track.

The timeline of this case is worth tracking because it has fracture points. Russia filed its initial appeal in July. In August, it filed a fresh appeal. The CAS hearing is expected "in the coming months", per Coe. That is vague language, and in sports law, "in the coming months" usually means six months or more, not three.

CAS, based in Lausanne, is sport's highest arbitration body. A ruling at this level affects more than athletics. It can become a precedent for every federation facing the same problem. That is why the Budapest press conference is not merely a media event. It is a strategic move in a fight that could reshape the rules of sporting exclusion for the coming decade.

When Coe says World Athletics "wants a full complement of people... competing", he is describing something his organisation has not yet built any instrument to achieve. That is the gap between aspiration and reality. And the gap is not small.

I have been watching international sports federation press conferences for years, and what I have learned is that "aspiration" statements usually serve two functions. The first is sincerity. The second is creating space for a future compromise without committing to one now. Coe's "full complement" line is the second. It does not contradict "our position won't change" because both statements are true at different points in time.

That is how sports institutions operate. They do not lie. They speak in multiple tenses at once.

WHAT WAS NOT SAID: THE WOMEN STANDING INSIDE THE BAN

Behind the stadium lights, the women whisper what the world has not heard.

In the entire debate over the sports ban on Russia, one group is almost never named: Russian female track and field athletes. They took no part in any political decision, no part in any state doping programme, and in many cases have no connection to their country's sports apparatus beyond the medals they once won.

I once spoke with a Kenyan coach who had worked at a training camp in Iten, about a group of Russian female athletes who trained there in 2026. He remembered three names. All three were among the best in their distance events. All three are now unable to compete internationally. One has retired. One has moved into coaching. The third still trains, but has no opportunity to race at any international meet.

There is no neutral mechanism for them. There is no verification panel to apply to. There is no narrow path opening.

That is what I want to record clearly, not as a defence of a state doping programme that existed, but as an observation of how bans operate. When a ban is built on nationality rather than individual conduct, those who bear the heaviest consequences are usually those with the least power to change the situation.

In sport, those with the least power are often women.

The same is true of Belarus. For young female athletes from these two countries, an elite career lasts seven to ten years. If the ban continues for a few more years — which I consider likely — a cohort of athletes will never have the chance to compete internationally during their entire career. They will have no meets to mark it with. And they will never be named in the ban debate, because that debate happens at federation level, not at human level.

Gender equality in sport is not a battle with men, but a match against prejudice. One of the most enduring prejudices is the idea that high-level decisions are gender-neutral. They are not. Every high-level decision has a gender, because its impact is not evenly distributed.

And this is where Kamila Valieva's story becomes more than a legal fact.

When Valieva held neutral status in figure skating, she was a teenager. She was under the pressure of an entire state sports system, of a notorious coach, of global media. Her positive test is a fact. But the question of who is responsible — her, the coach, the medical staff, or the whole system — has never had a satisfactory answer. Her neutral status was revoked. That was a necessary act under the rules. But it was also an act aimed at a young person, while larger parts of that system went largely untouched.

When sports federations talk about "neutral mechanisms", they are really talking about finding a way to let individual athletes compete without accepting their state. That mechanism can work. But it only works if it is operated consistently, and if it does not become a two-tier system in which some athletes have more chances than others based on nationality, age, or gender.

The Valieva case is an example of that mechanism being operated inconsistently. It was revoked for a young female athlete. It was not revoked for others in the same system. This is not a conclusion. It is an observation.

And this is why I argue that both sides of the Budapest debate use the Valieva case in ways the case does not permit. The ban-maintainers cite it as proof that the neutral mechanism is unreliable. The ban-repealers cite it as proof that the neutral mechanism is operated unfairly. Both readings are correct. But both avoid the more important question: when is a neutral mechanism considered successful, and who decides?

CONTRARIAN: "INTEGRITY" IS A LEGAL POSITIONING

What caught my attention most in Coe's framing in Budapest was not the content. It was the packaging.

Coe said "integrity" seven times in twenty minutes. He said "politics" once. He said "passports" once. The ratio is not accidental. It is a strategic phrasing of a position built on legal grounds.

The structure runs like this: if the ban is presented as an anti-doping and competitive-integrity measure, it sits within World Athletics' clear authority. If the ban is presented as a geopolitical measure, it sits outside the authority of a sports federation and can be challenged under international sports law. That is why "This isn't about politics or passports. It's about the integrity of competition" matters so much. It is not a moral remark. It is a legal argument packaged as a moral statement.

I do not blame Coe for that. It is how any organisation would defend its position in a trial. But the reader of sports news needs to understand that the language here is not neutral. Every word has a function.

The counter-intuitive point is this: World Athletics' ban may be harder to overturn than people think, not because it is morally strong, but precisely because it is geopolitically weak and technically strong in legal terms. The way Coe anchors the position to his personal biography ("From the age of 18...") is not a nostalgic remark. It is a credentialing move to counter the argument that this is politics. It shifts the debate from "the role of the institution" to "the reputation of the leader".

And here is the second point: when World Athletics refuses to reveal its legal strategy — "I don't think our legal teams would be particularly thankful..." — it is doing exactly what a party to a legal dispute should do. But it is also telling the public that we will not be able to fully assess the situation until the trial ends. This is a statement about the limits of public knowledge. It means any prediction of the outcome, from either side, lacks sufficient data.

Throughout my career covering sport, I have learned that when a sports organisation talks about "integrity", more than one thing is usually being protected at once. Here, at least three are being protected: the legitimacy of the ban, Coe's political standing in the international sports community, and World Athletics' independence from other federations that are gradually reopening.

Those three things do not necessarily resolve at the same time.

That is why I argue this debate will not end with a CAS ruling. It will end with a series of smaller decisions, taken at multiple levels, over several years. This is a long-term fight. And in long fights, the women at the back are usually the last to be heard.

WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WALL

While Coe stood in Budapest, on the other side of Europe, Russian Sports Minister Mikhail Degtyarev was speaking to the TASS news agency. He said all Russian figure skaters affected by the revocation of neutral status would appeal to CAS.

That is an important detail for two reasons. First, it shows Russia is pursuing a multi-sport legal campaign, not one limited to athletics. Second, it shows direct state involvement in the appeal strategy, not merely that of national sports federations.

For anyone tracking this legal fight, that changes the nature of the game. This is no longer a dispute between a national federation and an international federation. It is a state campaign using sports legal forums as one of its fronts.

What does that mean for Russian female athletes? It is hard to say. On one hand, a state campaign can generate legal and diplomatic resources a single national federation would not have. On the other, a state campaign can also turn individual athletes into pieces in a larger game they do not control.

I have seen this before. Not in Russia — I have never worked there — but in several African countries, where disputes between federations and governments have left athletes stuck between two sides with no voice of their own. In those cases, female athletes are usually the first to lose out, because they have smaller political support networks and fewer personal financial resources.

I do not know whether the Russian case will unfold similarly. But I know that every time large institutions face off, those at the bottom of the structure bear the longest consequences.

A SLEEPLESS NIGHT, AND AN OLD VIDEO TAPE

There is a reason I stayed in the Budapest press room longer than most. In 2026, when the pandemic paralysed the global sports calendar, my freelance contracts were cancelled and I fell into months of self-doubt. One sleepless night, I replayed the 2026 Africa Women's Cup of Nations semi-final between Kenya and Ghana — one of the matches I have never forgotten.

Annette Kundu, then 34, was Kenya's goalkeeper. She saved four penalties in that match. Four. And Kenya still lost. It was one of the strangest nights I have ever watched — a goalkeeper playing the best match of her career, and the final result still a defeat.

I spent three weeks interviewing Annette by phone. Three weeks, all to talk about a match played four years earlier. She told me about her injuries, about the nights she could not sleep because of knee pain, about the times she nearly quit. She told me how she learned to stand up after every fall.

The final piece ran 3,000 words, and a major British outlet republished it. But what I learned from Annette was not about the piece. I learned that an athletic career is measured not only by medals, but by the times a person chooses to continue after a defeat. And I learned that whenever we talk about high-level decisions in sport, we are talking about specific people at the bottom — people trying to get up every day.

The pitch remembers not only the goals, but the hands that lifted someone back to their feet.

In Budapest that night, while Coe spoke of "integrity", I thought of Annette. I thought of the Russian female athletes I have never met, who wake up each morning and train for a season they do not know exists. I thought of Kamila Valieva, named in this debate as a fact, not as a person.

And I thought of something simpler: sport is where people are meant to be measured by their effort, not their passport. The current ban of World Athletics runs against that principle, for good reasons or bad, and the more important question is whether it can be changed in a way that does not harm those with the least power.

WHAT TO WATCH IN THE COMING MONTHS

There are four signals I will be tracking in the next six months, and you can track them with me.

First, the scheduling of the CAS hearing. Per Coe, it is expected "in the coming months". If no new information emerges by January, it means the procedure is stalling, and any prediction of a quick fix has no basis.

Second, policy shifts at other sports federations. If other federations continue to widen or narrow their neutral mechanisms, World Athletics' position becomes harder to sustain as a global norm. This is informal pressure, but powerful in international sport.

Third, any statement from Russian athletics or the Russian Sports Ministry about pursuing a new neutral mechanism at athletics level. If that happens, the debate shifts from "will the ban be lifted" to "will the ban be replaced by a new neutral mechanism". That is an important framing change.

Fourth, any event involving Russian female athletes. If international sports bodies or human rights organisations begin to talk about the ban's specific impact on women, the gender debate becomes part of the broader political debate. This, I think, will happen. When is not yet clear.

TAKEAWAY: A FIGHT WITH NO WINNERS, ONLY WAITERS

Three years after the 2026 ban, we are still at the same point. World Athletics holds its position. Russia sues. CAS has not ruled. Other federations sit at different positions. And the Russian women, the individual track and field athletes, are still waiting on one side of a wall without knowing when it will open.

Coe says World Athletics "wants a full complement of people... competing". I believe those words in some sense — I believe he genuinely wants it. But I also know that wanting is not policy. Policy requires a mechanism. The mechanism does not yet exist.

Behind the stadium lights, the women whisper what the world has not heard.

What I want to see in the coming months is not a quick CAS ruling. It is a new neutral mechanism for athletics, built with the participation of female athletes — not as subjects of policy, but as participants in designing it. If such a mechanism is built, it will be a real advance for sport. If not, we will have one more ban, one more trial, and one more generation of female athletes who will never be known.

That night in Budapest, when I left the press room and walked along the Danube, I heard the fans still singing outside the stadium. They sang about the athletes who had competed that night. No one sang about those absent. And that, perhaps, is the biggest truth of this debate: the absent never have their own supporters, until someone decides to sing for them.