The world athletics governing body at a meeting last Friday, voted unanimously to uphold its ban on Russian Federation for systematic doping thereby dealing a major blow to the eastern European nation’s fate of participating in the Rio Olympic games.
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The final decision regarding Russia’s athletes is to be made at an International Olympic Committee meeting on June 21 in the city of Lausanne in Switzerland.
The IOC added that the decision is “in line with the IOC’s long-held zero-tolerance policy” regarding doping. Stephanie Hightower, president of USA Track and Field and a member of the IAAF council, said Friday’s decision “goes to the essence of our sport’s most critical issue”.
The IOC said it had “taken note” of the IAAF ruling and that its executive board will meet by teleconference Saturday to “discuss the appropriate next steps”.
Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko admitted on Saturday that the country’s athletes’ Olympic hopes are over following a decision made by the IAAF and supported by the IOC.
“We are extremely disappointed by the IAAF’s decision, creating the unprecedented situation of a whole nation’s track and field athletes being banned from the Olympics”, said the Russian ministry of sport.
Pound’s fears for the rest of the Russian Federation team are based on the potential outcome of a Wada investigation being carried out by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren following allegations of widespread corruption at the Sochi Winter Olympics two years ago. I sincerely hope they don’t do that because what we have seen is that clean athletes have been cheated for many years by state-sponsored, systemic cheating and it is awful and goes to the heart of confidence in sport.
Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Russian lab now living in Los Angeles, also gave an interview to the New York Times last month in which he said he switched tainted urine samples for clean ones at the doping lab used for the Sochi Games, with help from people he believed to be officers of the Russian security services.
However, the IAAF said those athletes would be few and would be eligible to compete only as “individuals” – and not under the Russian flag.
Considering both the IAAF and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) have raised lingering problems with Russian testing procedures, it can be argued that no Russian based athlete can be considered “clean”, with more investigations therefore required.
A Kremlin spokesman, speaking hours before the ban was extended, said: “Everything possible needed to defend the rights of our athletes and the Olympic team is being done and will be done at a legal level”.
“It is clear that, in order to curb state-wide doping, wherever it maybe in the world, countries must commit to a cultural change and that change can only come about by the decision-makers using their powers to full effect”, Reedie said.
Russian President Vladmir Putin has labelled the IAAF’s ban on his country’s athletes as “unjust and unfair”.
While some Russian athletes may be clean of banned substances, the decision to impose collective punishment was made necessary by the strong probability of Russian cheating at this year’s Games.
With athletics, weightlifting, swimming, football and every winter discipline already implicated, it is not only Russia’s Olympic place that appears in jeopardy, but Russian representation in all sporting competitions worldwide.
Sports minister Vitaly Mutko told R-Sport news agency on Friday that he hoped the International Olympic Committee could “somehow correct this situation”.
Two-time Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva was among the Russian athletes hoping to compete in Rio.
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The IAAF also recommended that Russian whistleblower Yulia Stepanova be allowed to compete at the Olympics as an independent athlete.
