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Latvian TV3 Says Neutral Russians Won’t Get Airtime—They’ll Get Ad Breaks
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Latvian broadcaster TV3 Group said it will continue to withhold coverage of athletes from Russia and Belarus competing under neutral status at sporting events, including by using those competition moments for planned advertising breaks, according to the group’s statement on January 20.
Toms Circenis, director of sports programming at streaming platform Go3, said the company had made a deliberate editorial choice not to highlight neutral athletes in its content because it has opposed Russia’s war against Ukraine since the first day of the invasion.
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Circenis said TV3 Group had initially considered not showing luge competitions at all, but decided that would have harmed Latvian lugers in an Olympic year, adding that Latvia’s team performances were the main priority for viewers.
“This is a deliberate editorial decision, not a technical coincidence, so these moments are used for planned advertising breaks,” Circenis was quoted as saying.
The International Olympic Committee said in September 2025 that eligible Russian and Belarusian athletes could compete at the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics as “Individual Neutral Athletes,” without national flags or anthems and subject to vetting criteria similar to those used for Paris 2024.
TV3 Group’s stance drew attention during last week’s European luge championships, when its TV6 channel cut to advertising during Russian athletes’ runs. The same approach would be applied during the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics and in other sports and news segments.
Earlier, it was reported that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy criticized the IOC’s decision to include neutral Russian and Belarusian athletes in the Olympics, calling the policy a form of “semi-sanctions” that fails to reflect the gravity of the war.
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