Last week’s damning WADA update on the current status of anti-doping in Russian Federation was probably the final nail for the athletics team’s hopes of overturning its ban, but equally damaging has been the news leaking from the investigation into claims Russian Federation ran a state-sponsored doping programme at and before the 2014 Winter Olympics.
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Russia’s Ministry of Sports said it was “extremely disappointed” in the IAAF’s decision on the ban, “creating the unprecedented situation of a whole nation’s track and field athletes being banned from the Olympics”, as Reuters reported.
Both athletes say they reject an IAAF measure that would allow some Russian athletes to compete under a neutral status, rather than the Russian flag, if they can show they are clean and have been tested regularly by a reputable testing authority outside Russia. The attacks I, my fellow athletes and my family had because we believed it was important to fight for sport were the subject of many media articles and mentions in one or two books. “The IAAF should be disbanded”, he said. “They have sacrificed years of their lives striving to compete at the Olympics and now that sacrifice looks likely to be wasted”.
He said WADA fully backed the decision last week to ban Russia’s athletics team from worldwide competition.
“Since the allegations were first made regarding ARAF, the IPC has been in dialogue with the Russian Paralympic Committee to establish what relationship and interactions, if any, they have with ARAF”.
“Athletes of the world remain optimistic that the Olympic Games will continue to be a place of equality, justice and fair competition”.
Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin said there should be no collective punishment for all Russian athletes over doping offences in the country. Wada president Craig Reedie said there had been “no cultural change” in Russian Federation since its athletes were banned and the IAAF ruling should send “a strong message” to other sports.
Russian Federation was suspended by the IAAF in November, and the ban was upheld on Friday in a vote which appeared to have the backing of the International Olympic Committee. There is no way to prove that any athletes are clean, it said.
“We will insist on the rights of clean athletes and will definitely return to the worldwide arena”, it said.
Two-time Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva was among the Russian athletes hoping to compete in Rio.
“Some of those athletes may well be Russian athletes living outside of Russia for an appropriate period of time in safe secure effective systems but there may be others who are not”. In addition, some athletes would report their whereabouts as military cities, where “athletes know that special permission is needed to gain access”, the report stated, noting that “athletes provide this location even if they aren’t there, to deter test planning”. However, given the massive level of doping in Russian Federation there are obviously problems with this approach.
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The IAAF task force recommended she be allowed to compete because of the “extraordinary contribution” she made to the anti-doping effort.
