Russia and Belarus are banned although you will still find a couple dozen Russian and Belarusian athletes competing as neutral athletes and if they win any medals then the song that plays will be an instrumental anthem written for the Games.
Athletes who can’t compete for their own country due to political reasons may participate as part of the Refugee Olympic Team which contains 36 athletes representing 'the world’s displaced population' and include participants from Iran, South Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia and Cuba.
A question i asked at the Olympics was if a member of the Refugee team win gold then what anthem will they have the (i assume) Olympic flag raised to and apparently it would be the Olympic Hymn which i didn't even know existed until about 10 minutes ago.
Anyway, i have the same bet with my Australian colleague regarding who will finish higher up the league table and we can assume China will top it as they ended the last one with more than double the British tally in second place but i am confident that i will be winning back the money i lost when Australia finished above us at the Olympics.
