Russia’s participation in the Rio Olympics is hanging in the balance after the International Olympic Committee said on Tuesday (Wednesday NZT) it would “explore legal options” for banning the country from the Games.
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Pound felt the clean athletes in Russia would suffer as the systemic state-sponsored doping in the country would make it very hard to determine whether any Russian athlete was clean.
IOC executive board held a meeting by teleconference on Tuesday to consider its steps in the wake of the McLaren report, which found that 28 summer and winter Olympic sports were affected by state-operated cheating in Russian Federation.
While Makhov vehemently supports clean sports, he believes WADA’s suggested country-wide ban is part of a political witch hunt against Russian Federation.
The Russian Olympic Committee has not been disqualified or banned. “Furthermore, the Investigation reveals that State oversight and directed control of the Moscow laboratory in processing and covering up urine samples of Russian athletes was applied to all sport disciplines whose urine samples were being analyzed by the Moscow laboratory.” said WADA’s President Sir Craig Reedie in a statement. Olympic Games should bring countries together.
The IOC is expected to hold another executive board meeting in the next few days, possibly on Sunday, to consider whether to ban the Russian team. That’s the year that the country boycotted the Olympics in LA.
Peskov said Russian Federation is ready and willing to listen to the opinion of WADA, and would continue interaction and contacts with the IOC.
Russia, though, has adopted a mostly defensive stance amid widespread worldwide criticism with many in the country feeling that they are the victims of a political witch-hunt. Earlier Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said a meeting between Putin and Russia’s Olympic athletes, previously scheduled for Thursday, would no longer take place.
Don’t understand the Russian doping scandal? Sixty-eight Russian athletes have appealed to CAS challenging the IAAF’s right to punish an entire national federation, since some team members have no positive drug tests on their record.
While waiting for the legal opinions, the International Olympic Committee has barred Mutko, a long-time ally of President Vladimir Putin, from the Rio Games.
FISA is one of 20 federations which govern sports in the summer Olympic programme that have effectively been defrauded by the elaborate doping scam run from Russia’s ministry of sport. He said he has suspended five top deputies, including his number two Yury Nagornykh, described as the point man for running the cheating scheme. That will also be after the verdict on the Russian track appeal comes out.
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That ban followed similar revelations of rampant doping with support from Moscow.
