The International Paralympic Committee said Friday it is investigating reports of widespread doping among Russia’s disabled athletes and is considering banning the entire Russian team from the Paralympics in Brazil in September.
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The nationalities in the new cases are yet to be revealed, but further samples from the last two Olympics will be reanalysed up to and during the Rio Games.
“It is now up to other worldwide federations to consider their responsibilities under the World Anti-Doping Code as it relates to their Russian national federations and up to the global Olympic Committee… to consider its responsibilities under the Olympic Charter”, the WADA statement said.
The exact number of positive doping samples was not specified, the Times said on Saturday.
The Paralympic Committee said it had received the names of 35 Russian para athletes with “disappearing positive samples” from a Moscow lab that has been implicated in the broader doping scandal.
The International Paralympic Committee’s decision Friday to start suspension proceedings against Russian Federation came two days before International Olympic Committee leaders decide whether to exclude the country’s entire team from the Olympics next month in Brazil.
Australian Paralympic Committee chief Lynne Anderson spoke in support of the move by the IPC, and said the committee would fully support any move to suspend NPC Russia from Rio based on the findings of the McLaren Report.
IPC president Sir Philip Craven thanked McLaren for his cooperation in uncovering the “unimaginable scale of institutionalised doping in Russian sport”.
The athletes are being informed, after which proceedings against them can begin.
Earlier, the first wave of retests of 454 samples from the Beijing 2008 Olympics found 30 positive samples.
It was not known by Saturday whether Russian athletes were among 45 who failed doping tests in retests of samples from the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Summer Games, announced on Friday by the IOC.
A decision by its executive board could come on Sunday.
But Thomas Bach (the International Olympic Committee president) also wants to give consideration to the rights of individuals’.
As well as excluding Russian athletes from the forthcoming Games, senior International Olympic Committee figures are also advocating a ban for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.
And there is set to be more bad news on the way with more samples from Beijing and London – specifically aimed at medal winners – set be be conducted throughout and beyond the Rio Games. If it does so, the Russian para athletes would presumably be barred from the upcoming competition in Rio.
“For me the principle of collective punishment is unacceptable”, wrote 85-year-old Gorbachev, asking Bach to make a “just decision”.
Olympics: Russia’s track and field athletes are fuming about the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s decision to uphold their doping ban.
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Two reports from the World Anti Doping Agency have detailed rampant, state-run drug cheating by Russian Federation, affecting 30 sports.
