Despite their country being at war a team of 20 Paralympians from Ukraine are due to arrive in Beijing for Friday's start of the Paralympic Winter Games meanwhile some members of the Russian Paralympic team are already in Beijing but won't know whether they can compete until later today.

International Paralympic Committee (IPC) president Andrew Parsons has told The Ticket the International Olympic Committee's recommendation that all athletes from Russia and Belarus be banned from sporting events will be discussed before a decision is taken.

"They [Ukrainians] are coming to the Games, they are trying to get here," Parsons said. "For their security, we are not disclosing any information on their whereabouts but they are on their way.

"Regarding Russia and Belarus, we will have a board meeting [on Wednesday] to decide on the situation.

"We are aware there are many different opinions around the world about their participation or not… everyone is entitled to their opinions but… we have to deal with the facts.

"The danger of the situation we are in at the moment is that athletes are treated as pawns, and we allow politics to come into play and we change the decisions that we would normally make."

Loading

The IPC has just approved a new constitution stressing the organisation is "neutral", according to Parsons.

"We do see the danger… that we start to become political, or be guided by political opinions or political decisions and then I think the danger is where we draw the line, why one conflict is more important than another, why one country yes and another country no, and we cannot be like that.

"The moment we start acting like that we lose neutrality and we will lose relevance… because we will be another movement that is dictated to or guided by political reasons."

Only six months ago the IPC was dealing with the Afghanistan Paralympic team struggling to flee Kabul after the capital was taken over by the Taliban. Now it is facing the task of whether to ban athletes from two separate countries.

"We all just want to deal with sport, with athletes, with the positive elements of what we do which is drive inclusion, change perceptions around disability… but unfortunately we live in a world where things are interconnected.

"We try to stay true to what we stand for as a movement — it's bringing inclusivity, to change the world to become a more inclusive place… and bring something positive out of high-performance competition and not to be pawns in a political game or our athletes be treated like that."

Parsons hopes once the decision on Russia is taken tomorrow, after the immediate fall out one way or the other, it will then allow people to focus on the sport.

Loading

"It's easy to make a decision when you know what is the right decision to make, the difficulty is to live with the consequences," he said.

Around 650 athletes from 49 countries are expected to compete at the Beijing Paralympic Games, an event that carries its own challenges given China's zero-COVID policy and the heavy restrictions around enforcing it.

"The last few years of the games have been challenging," Parsons says. "Although it [Beijing] is probably the safest place on earth at this moment in time."