Ban dirty athletes, but don’t ban Russia
Russia’s dirty athletes don’t belong, but the country does, writes Thomas Hall.
It’s looking more likely that Russian athletes will not be marching in the opening ceremonies of the Rio Olympics in two weeks.
Thursday’s announcement by the International Court of Arbitration of Sport to uphold a ban on Russian track and field athletes at the Olympics means a total ban on all Russians at the Games isn’t out of the question.
The call for the ban stems from recommendations by the World Anti-Doping Agency after the findings of the McLaren Report on Russian doping, released Monday. In a news release, WADA president Sir Craig Reedie says, “WADA insists upon imposition of the most serious consequences to protect clean athletes from the scourge of doping in sport.”
As an Olympic medallist who represented Canada for 15 years and competed clean, I don’t think WADA’s stance is about protecting clean athletes. I think it’s about protecting WADA.
The findings of the McLaren Report undoubtedly raise questions about WADA’s ability to create a doping-free sport world. Critically, WADA-approved labs were compromised and WADA’s tamperproof bottles were tampered with — two revelations that shake the foundation of the anti-doping system.
I underwent dozens of doping tests around the world both in competition and in the off-season, and the most important element of the process was trust that my urine samples were safe.
Here is how an average doping test works: You’re approached after a race and told you’ve been selected for a test. A chaperon is assigned to follow you until you reach the anti-doping headquarters for the event. You’re given a cup and told how much urine you must provide. If you don’t provide enough, you have to do it again.
When ready, you enter a bathroom with the chaperon, lift your shirt up to your chest and drop you pants below your knees and urinate into a cup you’re holding while the chaperon watches. They are watching to ensure that your urine is coming from you, not a tube connected to a reservoir of clean urine you’ve hidden somewhere.
Once finished, you place a lid on the cup and return to the table and choose from a handful of Styrofoam boxes. In each box are two bottles. One, the “A sample,” will be tested immediately, the other, a “B sample,” is kept for later testing or to corroborate a positive test. You fill the bottles, seal them, then seal them again in the Styrofoam box. No one but you touches the bottles until they’re in an accredited WADA lab. The bottles, we were told, are tamper-proof and the only way to access the urine within is to break them. In other words, there is no chance for contamination.
As a clean athlete, I felt safe knowing that no one could slip something into my sample at any time. The system was foolproof until Russia hacked it. Confidence in the infallibility of the system is shaken, and so, it appears, Russia must pay by not being allowed to compete at the Olympic Games.
To soften the blow, WADA recommends that clean Russian athletes be allowed to compete under a neutral flag. But that isn’t an olive branch; it’s a bag of silver. If the tables were turned and Canada was banned from the Games, I don’t think I would compete under a neutral flag. I’m Canadian and the biggest honour an athlete in Canada can have is wearing the maple leaf. Marching into the opening ceremonies under any flag other than that of my country would feel like a greater betrayal than anything done by a group of cheaters.
We must ban the athletes, coaches and administrators we know cheated. Ban them for life. But don’t ban the nation.
Banning a flag reeks of vengeance, not a calculated plan for creating a global sport culture that values clean sport. If anything, it will create more division in a world that is increasingly defined by “us versus them.”
The Olympics, Paralympics and, I believe, sport in general are fundamentally about bringing people together, not driving people apart.
Banning Russia would be a temporary salve for bruised egos, but in the long run could cause more harm than good. Allowing clean Russian athletes to compete as Russians is the only way to rebuild trust.
Banning a flag reeks of vengeance, not a calculated plan for creating a global sport culture that values clean sport. If anything, it will create more division in a world that is increasingly defined by ‘us versus them.’ — Thomas Hall