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Paralympics-Russia facing potential Rio doping ban

Doping has been associated with competitive worldwide games from inception (“Russian athletes can’t go to Rio”, July 22).

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The 30 new positive cases from Beijing involved athletes from four sports and eight countries.

According to well-placed sources, the International Olympic Committee will punish all 387 Russian sportsmen and women in the strongest possible way after revelations of their country’s state-sponsored doping programme shocked the world.

An IOC spokesman confirmed the conference call on Saturday but did not want to say if the outcome would be published on Monday or Tuesday.

In the report released Monday, the World Anti-Doping Agency said Russian Federation launched an extensive state-sponsored doping program after a poor showing at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, where it won just 15 medals and came in sixth overall.

Earlier, the first wave of retests of 454 samples from the Beijing 2008 Olympics found 30 positive samples. Should the NPC be suspended they will have 21 days to appeal against the decision.

The thought of clean athletes continues to take a hit – as the International Olympic Committee has announced a further 45 failed drug tests.

Meanwhile, Russia Friday said it expects to avoid a blanket ban at the Rio Games over state-run doping.

The IOC’s executive board are to hold a conference call on Sunday to discuss barring Russian Federation from the Rio Games that start on August 5 over bombshell doping revelations.

An additional 19 doping samples from the 2014 Paralympics in Sochi were tampered with, much like the samples of other Russian athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics. There were 138 samples retested from London 2012, involving athletes from two sports and nine countries. Many global Olympic officials and federation leaders have close ties to Russia, which has portrayed the exclusion of its track athletes and calls for a complete ban as part of a political, Western-led campaign. “McLaren’s findings are of serious concern for everyone committed to clean and honest sport”.

Russian Federation has been accused of running a state-wide doping program.

It comes in the light of the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejecting the appeals of 68 Russian athletes following an IAAF ban from the Olympic Games. “Sport must be clean, and an athlete’s health must be properly protected”.

“The new reanalysis once again shows the commitment of the IOC in the fight against doping”, IOC President Thomas Bach said in a statement.

P3 has prepared to keep athletes and spectators connected at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio with a global inventory with devices and SIM cards from the world´s network operators, the company said. The IOC said a decision could be made on Sunday.

IPC president Sir Philip Craven thanked McLaren for his cooperation in uncovering the “unimaginable scale of institutionalised doping in Russian sport”.

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He added that the commission would be “independent” and would include Russians and foreigners in the fields of medicine, law and sports administration.

AFP       Putin wants independent commission to address doping issues