“This blanket ban of the Russian Olympic Committee has been called by some the “nuclear option” and the innocent athletes would have to be considered as collateral damage”.
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But the International Olympic Committee has come under fire for not imposing a blanket ban on Russian athletes, despite the report revealing systematic state-backed doping in the country.
The Russian doctor who claims to have participated in the doping program said roughly one-third of the medals won at Sochi involved athletes who took part in Moscow’s doping program.
“Leaving aside that such a comparison is completely out of any proportion when it comes to the rules of sport”.
Bach also reiterated that the Olympic Movement must engage with youth to stay relevant, highlighting the importance of digital content – including an IOC visit to Silicon Valley – which will also feature prominently in an Olympic News Channel to go on air immediately after the Games.
“If proven true, such a contemptuous system of doping is an unprecedented attack on the integrity of sport and on the Olympic Games”, Bach said.
WADA has been criticised by members of the International Olympic Committee for not acting on information from whistleblowers of widespread doping in Russian Federation until it became public through the media past year.
The IOC gave worldwide sports federations the authority to rule on the entry of individual Russian athletes to the Rio Games, while also ruling out any Russian athlete with prior doping sanctions.
“To those who crave collective disqualification for Russian Federation, taking into account ruined fates and broke lives of innocent athletes, I fully agree with the position of president Bach that each individual must have at least the opportunity to prove their innocence”, he told the session.
In a bullish address here, Bach said the uncovering of Russia’s widespread doping had shown up deficiencies in the current system run by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
“The IOC is not responsible for the timing of the McLaren report”, Bach said.
“Recent developments have shown that we need a full review of the WADA anti-doping system”, Bach said.
Israeli member Alex Gilady echoed that feeling.
“I have always been and will always be a clean athlete and have been vocal in my anti-doping stance throughout my career”, she said in a statement.
Argentine member Gerardo Werthein also laid into WADA, saying “the failure to investigate serious and credible allegations more swiftly has left the sports movement.in a very hard position facing incredibly hard decisions in an impossible timeframe”.
“At times WADA has seemed to be more interested in publicity and self-promotion rather than doing its job as a regulator”.
Seemingly unmoved, Reedie later delivered his report to the session, insisting that WADA could have acted faster and better but also saying the organization needed more personnel and money to do better, and has only been able to investigate itself since 2015.
US member Larry Probst said it was wrong to attribute the problem to “international politics”.
“I would like to say that all of it is not broken, part of it is broken and we should start identifying those parts that need attention”.
Zhukov described the International Olympic Committee executive board’s decision not to ban the full Russian team as “very fair”.
He said it would be tragic if any of the 250-plus Russians awaiting a final green light from the IOC after being cleared to compete by the global federations, were now sent home. We may disagree how we get there but we all work toward the same goal of protecting clean athletes.
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However British member Adam Pengilly, a former skeleton racer who sits on the athletes commission, was the only one to vote against the call.
