The President of the Russian Paralympic Committee has said banning Russian athletes from the Rio Paralympics is a “gross human rights violation” and a “second-class political intrigue”.
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Allegations of state-sponsored doping made in an independent report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency have cast serious doubt over Russian competitors.
The ANOC president, a close ally of IOC president Thomas Bach, issued a statement Monday saying the umbrella body for the world’s 206 Olympic committees was “deeply concerned by the IPC’s decision which will unfairly punish clean Russian athletes”.
His words were echoed by sports officials in Rio who said a blanket ban was inappropriate and risked punishing clean athletes.
“While recognising the difference in the structures of Paralympic sport in Russian Federation, the IPC has chose to suspend Russian Federation from the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games; favouring collective responsibility over individual justice”.
Paralympic athletes have the same list of banned substances as Olympic athletes and, like them, anyone who requires additional medication for pain or treatment must apply for an exemption.
A hard decision that the Ipc found the strength to make and one which the International Olympic Committee (Ioc) lacked courage to make.
The doping scandal-which appears to have been run on a grander scale than even the notorious Soviet version-is just one indication of what Russian Federation has become under Putin.
Of the 19 bottles that could be forensically examined, 18 showed the same signs of tampering that McLaren’s gang had found with Russian Olympians, leading Craven to conclude that the Paras “were included in the broader doping scheme”.
“We will fight for our Paralympians”, he told Tass. We were first at the games in 2014 and second at the games in London.
“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”.
Putin himself has also attributed the doping scandal to a political plot, a view widely shared in Russian Federation. Its leader Philip Craven voiced disgust at the state-orchestrated doping uncovered by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
But now comes the latest decision to ban all of Russia’s Paralympic athletes from competing in Rio, with organizers blasting a “medals over morals mentality” in Moscow. “Their thirst for glory at all costs has severely damaged the integrity and image of all sport”.
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“The overwhelming majority of sportspeople who were prevented from taking part in the Games were absolutely clean sportspeople”, said Lukin.
