What country is AIN in the Olympics? This is what it stands for… and no, you can’t travel there
The Paris 2024 Olympics kicked off on July 26. (Getty)
While watching the Olympics, you might have noticed that each country is assigned a unique country code. One of these is AIN: but what does it mean?
Take, for example, AUS – this is the three-letter code for Australia, while NZL is New Zealand and USA is, well, USA.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) designates which acronyms are used for each country so that viewers know who the athletes they’re seeing represent.
But, eagled-eyed Olympics fans might have noticed one acronym that doesn’t seem to correspond to a specific country: AIN, and have been asking what it stands for.
The first thing to clarify is that AIN is not a country. AIN stands for Athlétes Individuels Neutres, or Individual Neutral Athletes in English.
AIN is being used for the first time this summer at the Paris 2024 Olympics to represent pre-approved Russian and Belarusian athletes who are not competing on behalf of Russia or Belarus because they have been banned from participating due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The athletes using AIN as their country code are also banned from using the neutral Olympic flag and Olympic anthem, which have been used by other neutral athletes in the past.
The flag used by AIN athletes features a circular AIN emblem instead.
All AIN athletes were banned from participating in the opening ceremony, and any medals won by those athletes will not be grouped together on the overall medal table.
Some Russian and Belarusian athletes have refused the invitation to take part as neutral athletes, however several were granted a place by an IOC panel.
The IOC said that only athletes who have “not acted against the peace mission” of the IOC “by actively supporting the war” would be eligible to compete under the AIN.
Despite this, some Ukrainian officials have said that no athletes from Russia or Belarus should be allowed to compete at all.
But, the IOC previously said that “no athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport”.
You can read all of our Paris Olympics 2024 coverage here.
