Top curlers weigh in on Russian crackdown

Chelsea Carey didn’t mince words when asked Tuesday if Russian athletes should be allowed to participate in the 2018 Olympic Winter Games. No. Carey said she supports a decision by the IOC to ban Russia from competing in PyeongChang because of systemic doping.

The IOC met Tuesday in Lausanne, Switzerland and announced the Russian team is banned, but individual athletes who receive special dispensation will be allowed to compete under a neutral flag.

Carey doesn’t think Russian curlers should be allowed at all.

Carey represented Canada at the 2016 world women’s curling championship and lost the bronze medal game to Russia’s Anna Sidorova.

“How do I know that Sidorova’s team was clean at the worlds? I can’t know that. We can’t possibly,” Carey said.

The website Inside the Games reported in November that an anti-doping investigation is ongoing against Russian curler Ekaterina Galkina, who played on Sidorova’s team, for submitting “disappearing positive” samples shortly before the Sochi 2014 Olympics.

A series between Sidorova and Victoria Moiseeva is planned to decide the Russian representative. The Russian men are playing in an eight-team Olympic qualifying tournament in the Czech Republic.

“I do feel bad for any Russian athletes that have competed on a clean stage,” 2014 Olympic women’s champion Jennifer Jones said.

Brad Jacobs, who won the men’s Olympic gold medal in Sochi, said his team is careful about every little thing they put in their bodies.

“As an athlete we just want to compete in an environment where it’s even across the board and nobody is taking any performance-enhancing substances,” Jacobs said.