In an interview with New York Times, published last week, ex-head of Moscow anti-doping laboratory Grigory Rodchenkov claimed that the Russian sports authorities allegedly prepared a special doping program for national athletes in order to win most of the medals at home Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014.
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“This action could range from lifelong Olympic bans for any implicated person, to tough financial sanctions, to acceptance of suspension or exclusion of entire national federations like the already existing one for the Russian Athletics by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF)”, the German said. “I would like to recommend that the U.S. investigate its own team”, responded Russian Sports Minister Vitaliy Mutko.
“We will not award a medal to another athlete whose sample has not been retested”, said Bach who added that it was unlikely that medals would be reallocated before the Rio Olympics start on August 5. The athletes are yet to be identified as tests of second samples are pending.
“It (the IOC) would have to consider, whether in such “contaminated” federations, the presumption of innocence for athletes could still be applied, whether the burden of proof could be reversed”, he wrote.
Budgett said that if athletes did not attend an “independent witness” would be present.
By stopping so many doped athletes from participating in Rio we are showing once more our determination to protect the integrity of the Olympic competitions so that the Olympic magic can unfold.
The International Olympics Committee said that up to 31 athletes could be banned from Rio Olympics 2016 following the retesting of urine using newer methods of doping samples from the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
“We haven’t been notified”, he said.
Kenya is “well on the way” to complying with the code of World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the government said on Wednesday after discussions to fix an anti-doping law whose shortcomings threatened Kenya’s participation at the Rio Olympics.
“I will not speculate on the result because there comes a decision we have to make between collective responsibility and individual justice, ” he said.
The IAAF is scheduled to decide on June 17 whether to maintain or lift the ban on the Russians for the Rio Games. “We would like to see the United States investigating its own national team”, Mutko told state news agency TASS.
In total, 454 samples were selected from the Beijing Games, with the re-tests following work with International Federations and WADA.
The US investigation is reportedly being conducted by the office of the US attorney for New York’s Eastern District, the same prosecutors who previous year indicted top officials from football governing body FIFA on corruption charges.
The positive cases from Beijing emerged from the recent retesting of 454 samples with “the very latest scientific analysis methods”, the International Olympic Committee said.
The Lausanne-based Olympic body’s executive board also announced on Tuesday that the results of 250 more re-tests from London 2012 would come shortly, with further retesting of medallists from 2008 and 2012 planned, too.
Bach says in a conference call Wednesday: “We have no information on this”.
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Coates, the AOC president and International Olympic Committee vice-president, used his appearance at the athletes’ farewell dinner in Sydney to reinforce the likelihood of severe consequences for Russian sport if, as expected, its already sullied image is trashed further by being caught up in the re-testing of samples taken in Beijing in 2008.
