Track and field’s world governing body is meeting to decide whether to allow Russian track and field athletes to compete in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Advertisement
Worldwide cooperation on the matter has been directly ordered by the Russian president within the context of countering doping practices and investigating those suspected of using banned substances, Peskov stressed.
The 27-member International Association of Athletics Federations meets in Vienna to decide whether to readmit Russia under the presidency of Sebastian Coe, himself the target of allegations that he enlisted the help of the fugitive son of disgraced predecessor Lamine Diack to secure his election a year ago. It did not help Russia’s case that last month, Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory from 2005-15, claimed he helped dozens of Russian athletes with a cocktail of banned substances and revealed how Russian anti-doping experts and members of the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, had secretly replaced urine samples containing banned substances of medal winners with clean urine at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Drug testers had faced intimidation and threats from armed Russian security forces while athletes continued to evade doping control officers with a variety of techniques.
According to the report, Russian athletes returned 52 adverse findings, including 49 for meldonium.
General Whereabouts – Overall, 736 tests requested of Russian athletes were declined or canceled with another 73 not able to be collected because the athlete wasn’t available. Conceivably, Russia could decide to pull out its entire Olympic team if its track athletes are banned.
Russia’s anti-doping agency and athletics body “were rotten to the core”, International Olympic Committee vice-president John Coates said Friday ahead of a decision on whether their track and field team can compete in Rio.
The IOC has called a summit of sports leaders next Tuesday to consider the IAAF ruling, and a blanket ban on Russians athletes for Rio will likely lead to appeals and court challenges.
As the IAAF decision looms, Athletics Australia chief Phil Jones said he would be stunned if the scandal-hit nation was allowed to compete in Brazil. The report outlined “a deeply rooted culture of cheating”, a state-sponsored doping program in which Russian athletes were tipped off about upcoming drug tests, and Russian anti-doping agency employees routinely accepted bribes to cover up positive tests.
Russian officials have acknowledged doping problems on its Olympic teams, but deny any government involvement.
“I think it would be shocking (if Russian Federation took part) given the WADA revelations (this week), and not only that but the systemic nature of the doping that was originally revealed by WADA”, he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“Obviously, you can’t clean up a culture of corruption in a matter of months – it’s just not possible – and that’s why we’ve stood firmly with a broad, global coalition of those who care about clean sport in saying that the Russian track and field federation can’t be allowed to compete at the Games”.
Following the release of the film, WADA launched an investigation into the allegations of doping abuse in Russian sports.
“The report today outlines some of the serious challenges faced in implementing an effective testing programme in Russian Federation, and it indicates that much work still needs to be done”, WADA said in a statement. “All the athletes are under control”, a defiant Mutko told Interfax news agency on Thursday. “A lot of credibility is at stake for the Russians, the IAAF and the IOC”.
In its report, the independent commission wrote that 90 percent of Russian athletes it approached either failed to respond or “emphatically” refused to be interviewed.
Advertisement
“Whether or not the International Olympic Committee choose to punish and investigate further (since clearly this was never limited to track and field but rather all Russian sport) I feel the IAAF has to be strong on this”, Radcliffe said in an email after the WADA report.
