Rio de Janeiro (dpa) – The International Paralympics Committee (IPC) on Sunday banned Russian Federation outright from the Games in Rio de Janeiro next month.
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Announcing the decision, IPC president Sir Philip Craven said: “The anti-doping system in Russian Federation is broken, corrupted and entirely compromised”.
Russia’s ban follows a damning report released last month which exposed widespread doping, but the International Olympics Committee decided against a blanket ban for athletes competing in the Olympics.
He told Russian news agencies the decision had a whiff of second-grade politics about it and questioned why the IPC, which he said had previously lavished praise on Russia’s Paralympians, had changed its mind so suddenly.
It was found by the Canadian law professor, Richard McLaren, how the Russian government is cheating with their athletes’ drug tests.
The German, who took over the IOC in 2013 and is overseeing his first summer Games as president, also said the atmosphere at the Olympic Park in Barra de Tijuca was improving after teething problems in the first few days.
“I believe none of the national Paralympic committees were more rigorous and attentive in implementing the anti-doping program than the RPC”.
The corresponding decision was announced by IPC President Philip Craven on Sunday, reports Sputnik.
The conclusion was that the state-sponsored, systematic doping scam, which also took place during the 2014 Sochi Games, was so systemic and extensive that it justifies a total ban on the Russian paralympic committee even though this also means excluding possibly clean ahletes from the paralymics.
“There are clearly very, very different circumstances from them to us”, International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams said.
Instead of a total ban, the International Olympic Committee gave the individual sports federation the free hand to conduct their own drug tests and concur with the IOC’s three-man panel to determine if the Russian athletes would be allowed to compete in the games. It’s a decision that has been met with criticism and discussion the world over – but a very different decision has been made with regard to the Paralympic Games, which are due to begin in early September. There are Russians who have labored their lives to overcome disabilities – including, surely, some who are clean – who now won’t be able to compete in the biggest sports event in the world open to people with handicaps.
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“Essentially the Russians coming into this knew they had a lot to prove”, says Maynes.
