Russian Federation could miss the Rio Paralympics after the International Paralympic Committee announced it had opened suspension proceedings following the publication of the McLaren Report.
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But Monday’s publication of Richard McLaren’s investigation into rampant Russian cheating prompted the IPC to act.
The Paralympic Games will be held September 7-18, following the Olympic Summer Games, which end August 21.
Should a ban be imposed, Russia’s National Paralympic Committee (NPC Russia) would have 21 days to lodge an appeal.
The decision of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to open a probe into the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) after the WADA report is a normal procedure, IPC needs time to study this issue, Russian Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko told TASS on Friday.
“The suspension of NPC Russia will now be considered in accordance with the IPC suspension policy”.
However, it’s a reminder that despite some of the greatest efforts to “level the playing field” for all athletes, performance-enhancing drugs are still quite prevalent in the sports world.
Russia, with places for 267 athletes across 18 sports, has the third largest delegation for the Rio Paralympics, behind China and Brazil. Britain will have around 260 athletes in 19 sports.
“The report revealed an unimaginable scale of institutionalized doping in Russian sport that was orchestrated at the highest level”, IPC President Philip Craven said.
The IPC said they have been provided with the names of the Paralympic athletes associated with the 35 “disappearing positive samples” from the Moscow anti-doping laboratory which were highlighted in McLaren’s report.
The International Olympic Committee is now under pressure to extend the IAAF’s ban on Russian athletics competitors in Rio to all sports. “So somewhat reluctantly, I am led to one conclusion, exclusion from Rio”, Pengilly said to the BBC. “Sports should be clean and the health of athletes should be well protected”, he said.
“You would have to consider that if doping was taking part in sport, that it could be in Paralympic sport as well”, she said.
The world athletics body International Olympic Committee reported separately on Friday 45 new doping failures from the last two Games, bringing the total number of positive drug tests to 98 since a retesting programme was launched.
Forty-five more athletes, including 31 medalists, have been caught for doping after retesting of samples from the last two Summer Olympics, the IOC said Friday.
“Athletes are working within the same system within nations and working in some cases with the same worldwide federations as well”. 23 of the athletes won medals at the Summer Games in Beijing.
In a separate announcement Friday, the International Olympic Committee stripped a Turkish weightlifter of her silver medal from the Beijing Games after her urine sample came back positive for steroids in new testing.
Russian Federation faces being kicked out of the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro in the latest disciplinary action by a sports body infuriated at growing evidence about the country’s state-sponsored doping program.
The IOC is under pressure to extend the IAAF’s ban on Russian competitors in Rio to all sports. The IOC’s executive board is due to convene again on Sunday.
Smirnov, a former International Olympic Committee vice president, was among five International Olympic Committee members given a “serious warning” in 1999 for their role in the Salt Lake City bid scandal.
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“For me the principle of collective punishment is unacceptable”.
