The World Anti-Doping Agency delivered a rebuke to the International Olympic Committee on Wednesday in a statement supporting track and field’s decision to bar Russian athletes from competing under their own flag at the Summer Games.
Advertisement
Russian athletes will file a class action suit against the ban preventing their participation in the Rio Olympic Games, as Russia’s sports minister said a decision to prevent its weightlifters from competing was “psychotic”.
Bulgaria has already been outlawed from competing in Rio by the IWF over drug sins, the decision was taken at the governing group’s last administrator board meeting a year ago and confirmed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in January.
The IOC said on Tuesday that deficiencies in the anti-doping systems in Kenya and Russian Federation had created doubts about the presumption of innocence for athletes from both countries.
The panel will also consider “whether any coach, doctor or other support person with whom the applicant hasworked has ever been implicated in the commission of any anti-doping ruleviolation (s)” before granting permission, the IAAF have also warned.
World 110-metre champion Sergei Shubenkov competes at the Russian track and field championships this week. The Russians confirmed they will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
A conclusive judgment on the prohibitions will come after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has made an absolute ruling on the re-tests. The Olympics begin on August 5.
The IOC said Tuesday that every competitor from Russian Federation and Kenya would have to be evaluated individually for doping and be cleared by his or her sport’s worldwide body because of those countries’ poor anti-doping records.
The IAAF’s detailed guidelines should now answer Litvinov’s questions and his case will provide a good indication of how many Russian athletes will get through the IAAF process, as he has a clean record and dual German-Russian nationality but trains in Russia.
The Russian Ministry of Sport gave a diplomatic response to the IOC’s announcement on Tuesday that prospective Olympians from the country, in all sports, would have to pass individual anti-doping assessments before being declared eligible.
Mikhail Butov, secretary general of the All-Russia Athletic Federation – which will be party to the lawsuit along with Russian athletes – told Tass: “A suit or suits will be submitted to CAS next week. Then we will make the final decision”.
The key issue for the board will be deciding what, in the words of the criteria, is a “sufficiently long period for the athlete to have been subject to other (fully adequate) anti-doping systems outside of the country of his/her national federation”.
Advertisement
“This, to me, sounds like global bodies are intimidating Kenyan athletes”.
