On Sunday, the IPC announced the decision to suspend Russian Paralympic athletes from the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, which are scheduled to be held in Rio on September 7-18.
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Russian Federation has been barred from taking part in next month’s Rio Paralympics, with organisers blasting a “medals over morals mentality” as they announced the blanket ban over state-backed doping that Olympics bosses avoided.
So the news is likely to get worse for Russia’s Paralympic athletes, with the reallocation of medals being nearly inevitable.
Craven was speaking shortly after his announcement that the entire Russian team would be banned from the Rio Paralympics next month for what he described as a “medals over morals mentality that disgusts me”.
“With the full facts to hand, we were deeply saddened to find that the state-sponsored doping that exists in Russian sport regrettably extends to Russian Para sport as well”, said Craven.
Russian Federation immediately announced it would be appealing against the ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. “They are an unprecedented attack on every clean athlete who competes in sport”.
Criticising the decision as absurd and inhumane, President of the RPC Vladimir Lukin claimed there is no proof of the McLaren report’s accusation of Russia’s alleged state doping system, nor RPC’s involvement in it.
“Tragically this situation is not about athletes cheating a system but about a state-run system that is cheating athletes”.
“It impairs clean athletes. for political reasons rather than sporting, and goes against the Paralympic movement’s principle of inclusion”, World Archery said in a statement.
“The Paralympic Games without Russians are games in a cut-down form”, Terentyev told Tass.
“We will fight for our Paralympians”, Mutko, who the International Olympic Committee banned from attending the Olympics, told the Tass news agency.
Russia’s Paralympics team won 102 medals at London 2012 and placed second in the table with 36 golds, behind only China.
He explained that the decision to ban Russian Federation was taken unanimously by the IPC’s governing board on Friday.
“Their thirst for glory at all costs has severely damaged the integrity and image of all sports, and has certainly resulted in a devastating outcome for the Russian Paralympic Committee and Para athletes”.
“It shows a blatant disregard for the health and well-being of athletes and, quite simply, has no place in Paralympic sport”, Craven said.
The Paralympic movement is anticipating further evidence of positive tests being covered up that McLaren did not uncover in his initial 76-day investigation.
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“There are clearly very, very different circumstances from them to us”, International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams said.
