“We have set the bar to the limit”, said IOC president Thomas Bach after the meeting in defending the action against the worst doping scandal in the Olympic movement’s history.
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In 2014, middle-distance runner Yuliya Stepanova and her husband Vitaliy – an ex-employee of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency – blew the whistle on Russia’s state-sanctioned drug cheating.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had recommended barring Russian athletes from next month’s Games, after revelations of a state-sponsored doping programme compromising the results of the country’s representatives in numerous sports in recent years.
The Association of National Olympic Committees also backed the IOC, with ANOC president Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah saying an all-out ban “would have unfairly punished many clean athletes”.
In a statement, the IOC said it would accept the entry of only those Russian athletes who meet certain conditions set out for the 28 global federations to apply.
Apart from that, the International Olympic Committee ruled than no Russian athlete who has ever been sanctioned for doping will be allowed to take part in the Rio Olympics, even if he or she has served the sanction.
Travis Tygart was not pleased. “It shows it is determined to fight doping but also mindful of its charter to protect the rights of all athletes, which in this case are the clean and innocent Russian athletes”.
The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) is a valued member of the EOC.
But the country’s national anti-doping agency was scathing.
Russia’s Sports Minister, Vitaly Mutko, said he was grateful to the International Olympic Committee for not imposing a blanket ban on Russians.
“This is a very ambitious timeline, but we had no choice”, Bach said.
“They still have a lot of high hurdles to jump over in order to be able to compete in Rio, it’s not going to be an easy path for them”.
“Of course, this is a very important decision”, Mutko told local media in Moscow.
The World Anti-Doping Agency has stood by its recommendation to exclude Russian Federation and has also expressed disappointment at the IOC’s verdict. Though the Committee has lifted the “presumption of innocence”, it says that each athlete deserves individual justice.
The IOC said Stepanova, now living in the United States, did not meet the criteria for running under the IOC flag and, because she had committed doping violations, did not satisfy the “ethical requirements” to compete in the games.
She had refused to run for Russian Federation and hoped for a special Olympic charter exemption to compete as a neutral after she gave evidence to WADA.
“I can not imagine an Olympic Games without Russian Federation, it is not possible”.
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Instead of sending a message that would reverberate around the world and have lasting impact, the IOC’s decision amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist.
