I.O.C. Clears Nearly 400 Russians to Compete in Winter Games

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The Russian Olympic team has been barred from competing in the coming Winter Games because of a doping scheme that corrupted several Olympics and many other major international events. But when the Games begin next month in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Russia’s representation could be as strong as ever.

When they barred Russia last month, Olympic officials left a side door open for athletes who could prove they were clean. On Friday, in a statement about the results of that opaque, monthlong review process which scrutinized aspiring Russian Olympians, the International Olympic Committee said it had provisionally cleared nearly 400 Russian athletes to compete at the 2018 Winter Games.

The I.O.C. invited Russia’s suspended Olympic committee to propose which athletes of that group — their identities still unknown — would occupy Russia’s earned competition slots at the Games. At the last Winter Games, in 2014 in Sochi, Russia, it named 232 athletes to its team. The final decision about just how many athletes the I.O.C. will invite to compete will be made on Jan. 27.

Olympic officials on Friday declared 111 Russian athletes ineligible and said the approved athletes would be required to fulfill certain additional broad conditions, “such as further pre-Games tests and reanalysis from stored samples.” Frustrating some global antidoping officials, the I.O.C. did not publish the names of the approved athletes, their drug-testing histories or the specific criteria used to assess the group.

“More than 80 percent of the athletes in this pool did not compete at the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014,” the International Olympic Committee said in the statement, referencing the event at which Russia executed an elaborate overnight cheating operation. “This shows that this is a new generation of Russian athletes.”

Paul Melia, Canada’s top antidoping official, called that statement naïve. “In the face of evidence of a state-run doping program going back to at least 2011, to think that overnight there’s a new generation of Russian athletes ready for the Olympics?” he said.

Thomas Bach, president of the I.O.C., has called Russia’s cheating reflective of an “unprecedented level of criminality.” Mr. Melia said the I.O.C.’s actions were unlikely to deter similar such cheating. “If you wanted to send a strong message that this is absolutely unacceptable, you’re not going to let their athletes come to the next Games,” he said.

The International Paralympic Committee, which barred all Russian athletes from the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, is due to announce whether the nation can compete in Pyeongchang. In contrast to Olympic officials, Paralympic officials have demanded that Russian officials admit to the schemes before the country’s team returns to competition. In recent days, Russian officials have forcefully disputed fundamental details of the Sochi scheme with announcements from Russia’s equivalent of the F.B.I.

In clearing a path for Russian athletes, the International Olympic Committee sought to emphasize the wrongdoers it had indeed excluded. None of the approved athletes were among those disciplined by the organization for doping in Sochi, and none have been suspended for a doping violation in the past. Each athlete’s candidacy was considered anonymously, according to Olympic officials.

Beyond being declared clean by the I.O.C., Russian athletes will need to have qualified for the Games by the standards of their respective sports. As a handful of qualifying events continue before Jan. 28 — the deadline by which athletes must be registered for the Games — the I.O.C. said Friday that it was impossible to estimate the number of Russian competitors.

Still, the generous pool established Friday makes it possible for the number to rival the size of Russia’s delegation in Sochi, where now-disgraced medalists used a cocktail of anabolic steroids and had their incriminating urine samples destroyed.

In Pyeongchang, Russian athletes will technically compete under the Olympic flag, with no Russian emblems identifying them or appearing at the opening ceremony on Feb. 9. Nonetheless, Russian athletes and officials have expressed pride that their athletes will be referred to by the acronym OAR: Olympic Athlete from Russia. In past cases in which athletes from suspended countries like Kuwait have competed under the Olympic flag, there have been no references to national origin.

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Antidoping officials from more than 20 countries have called the level of public detail about the I.O.C.’s evaluation process insufficient, requesting on Thursday that Olympic officials publish specific criteria in light of the I.O.C.’s own statement in 2016 that Russian athletes ought to be presumed tainted by a corrupted system and required to prove themselves innocent.

The I.O.C. said Friday that the soonest it could publish the names of the athletes invited to compete would be Jan. 27, following an I.O.C. meeting on the matter to be held in Pyeongchang that day.

Legal challenges, too, are to be considered by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which has 39 appeals related to Russian doping to be decided ahead of the Games. Those hearings are due to begin in Switzerland next week.

“As the qualification process is still ongoing and more preconditions have to be met by some of the athletes, it is still not possible to project how many athletes will participate in Pyeongchang,” the I.O.C. said, prompting outcry from officials who called for a clue to the number of approved athletes who were likely to meet qualifying standards.

“This chosen group of Russian athletes have gone through the most rigorous testing worldwide,” Valérie Fourneyron, France’s former sports minister and the chairwoman of the I.O.C. review panel, said Friday. Days earlier, at a tournament in Siberia, three dozen Russian athletes abruptly withdrew from a regional track and field competition after drug-testing officials had arrived unannounced, according to Russian media.

“We need to know what kind of tests these athletes have had, and we need to know who carried out those tests,” Mr. Melia said, noting that Russia’s drug-testing operations had been decertified by international regulators for the last two years. “That’s information that would give other clean athletes around the world some confidence.”