Russia’s athletes will continue to prepare for the 2016 Paralympic Games despite the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) implementing a blanket ban.
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Despite the IPC’s reasoning for its Russian ban decision, ANOC said it had been “widely acknowledged” that the McLaren report “needs further research before comprehensive conclusions can be drawn”. “We’ll let the IPC study all the consequences of this decision on every sport and discipline”, an IPC communications manager said.
The British Paralympic Association has welcomed the decision of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to suspend Russian Federation from the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.
In the International Olympic Committee case “you had a corrupt IAAF (athletics federation) at the top and a corrupt national federation” while “they (IPC) only have one national federation; they have to take a blanket decision”.
The CEO of Paralympics Ireland, Liam Harbison, welcomed the IPC’s move, saying: “This is a huge decision, not only for the integrity of sport in general, but particularly for Paralympic sport”.
Last month’s investigation – commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency – exposed Russia’s years of doping deception, including the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi.
Many of Russia’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes were tested at the same Moscow lab that’s been implicated in the doping scandal.
Russian Federation finished second in the medal count at the 2012 Paralympics in London, with more medals earned in swimming than in any other sport.
The IPC said it took Russian appeals, “both in person and in writing”, but the group’s governing board unanimously decided that Russia could not guarantee compliance and enforcement of the code.
The Russians have promised to appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport, and fair enough – that’s why there are avenues of appeal, to protect against miscarriages of justice. About 120 Russian Olympic athletes have been barred and around 270 have been cleared to compete.
“The facts really do hurt”, International Paralympic Committee president Philip Craven said.
Despite calls by athletes and sports officials for harsh sanctions on Russian dopers, multiple worldwide federations have warned against punishing clean sportsmen and women with no history of cheating.
Craven said: “The anti-doping system in Russian Federation is broken, corrupted and completely compromised”.
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Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the ruling violated the human rights of Russia’s Paralympians.
