Russian athletes banned from Rio due to a doping scandal will compete in a domestic competition, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
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Putin said, “This campaign that targets our country’s athletes includes the use of notorious double standards and the principle of collective responsibility, or, as was said, ‘reversal of the presumption of innocence, ‘ which is not compatible with sport and not compatible with justice and basic legal norms in general”.
“It is obvious that the absence of Russian sportspeople – leaders in many sporting disciplines – will significantly affect the intensity of the competition and diminish the spectator value of the forthcoming events”, said Putin.
The necessity of clearances from individual sports authorities came after the IOC refused to ban the entire Russian Olympic team, despite outcries from the worldwide sporting community to do so after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) confirmed it found evidence of state-sponsored doping. She shed tears during the meeting as she told him that athletes’ dreams have been taken away.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has labeled the ban on Russia’s track-and-field team from competing in this summer’s Olympic Games as “open discrimination”. Swimming has also barred some athletes.
Putin spoke while standing alongside two-time Olympic pole-vaulting champion Yelena Isinbayeva, the most high-profile of the 67 track and field athletes expelled from the games.
McLaren reported last week that four positive doping tests in Russian fencing and four in triathlon had disappeared in recent years.
Addressing members of Russia’s Olympic team at the Kremlin, Putin said the scandal, which centres on allegations that the Russian government and FSB security service systematically covered up doping for years, had unfairly targeted many Russian sportspeople who had not faced specific and proven accusations. “If you step out of line you won’t make the start line”. London Games gold medalist Alexander Dyachenko, Andrey Kraitor, Alexey Korovashkov along with Elena Aniushina and Natalia Podolskaia have been banned. “Undoubtedly, all athletes and sports fans should be granted open access to all doping inspections, including how, when and who carried out the inspection and what were the results”. FINA President Julio Maglione said earlier this month that the resignation of Russian Sports Minister Mutko would be terrible.. The bodies are deciding after the International Olympic Committee on Sunday stopped short of imposing a complete ban on Russia’s entrants following an independent report that exposed a massive state-backed doping program.
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“For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, the CAS will be in charge of doping-related matters arising on the occasion of the Games as a first-instance authority”, CAS said in a statement.
