Russian paralympic athletes have been kicked out of the Rio Games following revelations of systemic doping.
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Sir Philip Craven, President of the International Paralympic Committee, released a statement on Sunday announcing that in order to protect the interests of his movement and to ensure fair competition, Russian Federation is banned from the upcoming Rio 2016 Paralympics.
And IPC president Sir Philip Craven has blamed the country’s government for the decision due to their state-run doping programme.
The ban comes after a report implicated Russian para-athletes in a widespread state-sponsored doping program.
“I believe the Russian government has catastrophically failed their para athletes”.
Although not directly referred to in the McLaren Report, the IPC said it now had evidence that the sample swapping regime that operated during the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games in the Sochi laboratory was also in operation during the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games. The IPC said Russia’s suspension is necessary to ensure fair competition and provide a level playing field for all para athletes.
“They are part of a broken system and we sincerely hope that the changes that need to happen, do happen”, said Craven, the long-time Paralympic chief.
The International Olympic Committee made a decision to let Russia into the Rio Olympics now underway, but eliminated 100 athletes who were filtered out by individual federations.
The Canadian Paralympic Committee responded by supporting the IPC’s decision to ban all Russians from September’s Paralympic Games.
The 2016 Summer Paralympic Games will be held in Rio de Janeiro on September 7-18.
He added, “Their medals over morals mentality disgusts me”.
“This means that the team, which numbers about 270 athletes, is banned to do what it has been doing in the past several years, its training practice”.
Perhaps the Paralympians have simply embraced the true spirit of the Olympics, and stayed committed to the Olympic athlete’s oath. The committee said its decision was unanimous.
Addressing Russia’s Olympic team before they traveled to Rio last week, Putin said Russian sport had fallen foul of a politically motivated plot and the principal of collective responsibility flew in the face of common sense and legality.
It’s not unheard of for Paralympic athletes to get banned because of doping.
“The facts really do hurt; they are an unprecedented attack on every clean athlete who competes in sport”.
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Russian Federation has one of the strongest Paralympic delegations in the world, having won 102 total medals at the 2012 London Paralympics, coming in second after China.
