Russia gets six World Cup start places per race again. Only five of its neutral skiers can use them

Russian neutral athletes will have the same World Cup quota this winter as Russia had in 2021/22, the last season before its exclusion. The FIS press office confirmed that to Russian media this week. Russian outlets including Sport-Express read it as six start places per gender in each individual race and up to 12 skiers entered per gender for a World Cup weekend. That is the most any nation gets: in the 2026/27 World Cup rules, Norway, Sweden and the other top-ranked nations also have a basic quota of six. Russia isn’t in the published quota table at all, and nations that aren’t listed get two.

A quota only matters if you have skiers who can fill it. On that front, Russia has a gap.

The points problem

To start a World Cup race, an athlete needs 150 FIS points or less on the points list valid for that race: distance points for distance races, and distance or sprint points for sprints. Fewer points is better.

We checked all 13 Russian cross-country skiers on the FIS list of approved neutral athletes against the current FIS points list, the second of 2026/27, which runs from 15 October to 11 November. Five of them meet the threshold:

Points from each athlete’s FIS profile on the current points list, checked 18 October.

The other eight have no FIS points on the list at all: Arina Kalicheva, Elizaveta Maslakova, Alena Plecheva, Ekaterina Shibekina and Kseniia Shorokhova among the women, and Dmitrii Puzanov, Andrei Sakharov and Sergey Volkov among the men. Russian domestic races haven’t been on the FIS calendar since 2022, so their results at home don’t earn FIS points.

That leaves three women (Nepryaeva, Nikitina and Pekletsova) and two men (Korostelev and Denisov) who could start in Ruka on 27–29 November under the normal rule. Pekletsova’s sprint points are above the limit, but her distance points also qualify her for sprints.

Can that change before Ruka?

Not easily. The next points list takes over on 12 November and is expected to be the one in force at Ruka. The next FIS races on snow are in Olos, near Muonio in Finland, from 13 November, after that switch, so results there can only count on a later list. The skiers without points could still reach the World Cup later in the season if they collect points in FIS races abroad first.

The rules do leave one door open. In exceptional circumstances, a national federation can apply in writing at least a week before an event for an athlete who misses the entry requirements. The FIS race director decides together with the chairs of the cross-country and World Cup committees. The examples the rules give are top athletes from other sports and comebacks after pregnancy or injury. Whether Russia applies, and whether FIS would accept it, isn’t known.

Russia’s own selection adds a further step. Sovetsky Sport, citing the Telegram channel Radiolyzhi, reported that the Russian federation plans to pick its World Cup squad at the “Yugoria. First Snow” races in Khanty-Mansiysk on 8–11 November. The federation hasn’t announced that officially.

What about Bolshunov?

Aleksandr Bolshunov is not on the FIS list of approved neutral athletes. On 16 October, Yuri Borodavko, senior coach of the Russian national team, said Bolshunov had left the Russian army, which he said FIS had required, and that his chances of being cleared had risen significantly. FIS has not commented on Bolshunov’s application.

Points would not be his problem. The three-time Olympic champion from Beijing still has 3.10 distance points and 30.07 sprint points on the current list. Veronika Stepanova, the other big name missing from the neutral list, has 32.28 distance points. For both, neutral status is the only barrier.

What it means

This section is analysis.

The full quota is a promise for later in the season, not for Ruka. Six places per race is a lot of room, but on today’s numbers Russia can fill about half of it in the women’s races and a third in the men’s. The gap closes only if more athletes earn FIS points in races outside Russia, if FIS grants exceptions, or if athletes with points, like Bolshunov and Stepanova, are cleared.

The women’s team is where it gets interesting. Eight Russian women are cleared, and three of them can race now. Pekletsova, last season’s overall Russian Cup winner, and Nikitina have no FIS-listed results since March 2022. Ruka will be the first real comparison between Russia’s domestic level and the World Cup field since 2022.

For other nations, the impact is small for now. Five extra skiers on the start list won’t change much at the top, though Korostelev and Nepryaeva both finished inside last season’s top 25 overall. Further down, the effect builds if Russia fills its six places from December on. We explained the wider rules for neutral athletes in our guide to the 2026/27 conditions.

Update, 24 October 2026: FIS cleared 22 more Russians on 23 October, five of them with enough FIS points, including Natalia Terenteva. Ten Russians, five per gender, could now start in Ruka. Our analysis.