The IOC has ordered individual federations which organise the sports contest at the Olympics to filter out Russian athletes who should be banned over the doping.
Advertisement
About the only thing that the two sides were able to agree on, is the fact that the worldwide anti-doping system needs to be fixed, if the credibility of the fight against the used of performance enhancing drugs is to be restored.
WADA chief Craig Reedie, who is also an IOC Vice President, defended his organisation’s actions, saying it acted once concrete facts were made available but added that things needed to improve. With the fates of many Russian athletes still up in the air and other anti-doping agencies and athletes’ advocacy groups calling for a total ban, Bach again rejected such extreme measures, which he said would unfairly punish clean athletes.
The two global sports bodies are at odds over an investigation that revealed state-orchestrated Russian doping which left the International Olympic Committee scrambling for a response.
Acknowledging that Rio 2016 organizers have had to confront “serious economic conditions and political fragilities”, Coe said: “I think they will show the world over the next few weeks that they have done a pretty decent job here”. “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. Reedie responded: “I told him that I found that personally offensive”.
“What we’re dealing with here is how we handle a threat to the Olympic movement caused by systematic anti-doping corruption in a particular country, state run, that’s going to require all of us to think about it”, Pound said.
With four days to go until the Olympic opening ceremony, the IAAF president joined leaders of the other 27 sports for a meeting with the IOC at the Marapendi hotel on Monday. He said it would be wrong to make individual Russian athletes “collateral damage” for the wrongdoing of their government.
Bach blasted an outright ban as a “nuclear option”, adding: “Let us just for a moment consider the consequences of a “nuclear option”. The Olympic movement stands for life and the construction of a better future”. “The cynical ‘collateral damage” approach is not what the Olympic movement stands for”.
In the wake of its McLaren report into doping in Russia, Wada had recommended all the country’s competitors be excluded from Rio 2016, but the International Olympic Committee devolved responsibility to individual sport’s federations.
WADA’s independent commission, chaired by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren, released a report on July 18 on the results of its probe into accusations of doping and manipulation of tests by Russian athletes and officials at the 2014 Sochi Games. “On the other hand, we can not deprive an athlete of the human right to be given the opportunity to prove his or her innocence”.
Bach’s forthright condemnation of the WADA escalates the public feud between the Olympics and anti-doping bodies which has broken out of late.
“I think it’s not the reputation of the International Olympic Committee that has to be restored, it’s the reputation of WADA”, Israeli member Alex Gilady said.
“One has to scratch his head if WADA says they did not know what to do with whistleblowers who came to them with clear information, and just left it”.
Reedie said he spoke later with both men and addressed their concerns.
“We have never turned a blind eye on doping issues”, Mutko said in an interview with TASS.
Advertisement
“They are banning those who already served their punishment”, said Dr Batuev.
