Individual athletes might not have failed a drug test but that doesn’t mean anything – we’ve seen that in the past. Andersen said that Mutko recently “admitted that they have inherited a doping culture”.
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“But at the end of the day, if there are truly clean athletes. you hope they use this opportunity to stand up against the people in their country who’ve caused them this harm and ensure it doesn’t happen again”. “I will prove to the IAAF and World Anti-Doping Agency that they made the wrong decision”.
Putin claims all athletes are tainted by the doping allegations.
A statement from European Athletics President Svein Arne Hansen said it would be “unfair to allow the impression that doping is a problem confined to Russian Federation or to athletics”.
“We are extremely disappointed by the IAAF’s decision to uphold the ban on all of our track and field athletes, creating the unprecedented situation of a whole nation’s track and field athletes being banned from the Olympics”, the Russian sports ministry said.
“Athletes have been losing sleep”, Lauryn Williams, a track and field and bobsled athlete from the United States, said.
“We have done everything possible since the ban was first imposed to regain the trust of the global community”, said Vitaly Mutko, the nation’s sports minister. A five-member task force presented an update to the IAAF council Friday in Vienna, and reported that Russian Federation had failed to fully address its “deep-seeded culture” of doping.
“I can not say she will compete in Rio but the council said they will look favourably”.
“There must be clean athletes in Russian Federation but because they are under the system, we can not be sure”.
“Clean athletes’ dreams are being destroyed because of the reprehensible behaviour of other athletes and officials.
The head coach of Russian athletics and many athletes appear unwilling to acknowledge extent of the doping problem and ignore the anti-doping rules”.
The International Olympic Committee has scheduled a summit of sports leaders next Tuesday to address “the hard decision between collective responsibility and individual justice”. Reports revealed that 52 Russian athletes have tested positive since November and Russian security harassed WADA testers. She has threatened to go to court on human rights grounds if excluded from the games.
Olympic pole vault double gold medallist Yelena Isinbayeva, one of Russia’s most successful sportswomen, called the IAAF decision a violation of human rights.
WADA also “wholeheartedly supported” the IAAF’s recommendation to allow Russian whistle-blower Yuliya Stepanova to potentially compete in the Olympics as an independent athlete. The report detailed some of the measures Russian athletes have taken to avoid drug-testing in the months that followed the initial IAAF suspension, including one incident in which an “athlete used a container inserted inside her body [presumably containing clean urine]”.
Vitaly said they are pleased to know Yuliya has a fighting chance to be in Rio, and hope that “sports officials will learn from this”.
But shortly after Putin finished his address, the forum’s participants and Russia’s business and political elite grouped to discuss the country’s latest punishment that they believe the West had invented. “Unfortunately we were not able to get much support in Russian Federation”.
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The 800m runner and her husband Vitaliy were the whistleblowers who helped uncover just how rotten the Russian system had become when they first took their story to WADA and then to a German documentary-maker.
