Irate Burmistrov lashes out at IOC
Canucks winger critical of decision to essentially ban Russia from 2018 PyeongChang Games
Alex Burmistrov, when informed Tuesday morning about the International Olympic Committee’s move to essentially ban Russia from the 2018 PyeongChang Games, minced no words.
“Bullshit,” the Vancouver Canucks winger said. “With everything Russia has done for sport ... It doesn’t matter, I’m not just talking about hockey or something different — I think it’s bad.
“It’s not just our country that did doping. Everybody got caught, every country.”
Burmistrov said it was difficult to accept the NHL’s decision to pass on South Korea.
“We want to win the Olympics. It was hard for us. It’s even harder right now.”
In a report released Tuesday in Switzerland, the IOC labelled the Russian doping efforts at the 2014 Sochi Games a “systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system.”
The Russian doping program caused “unprecedented damage to the Olympics and sports,” said IOC-appointed investigator Samuel Schmid, the former president of Switzerland who was asked to verify an “institutional conspiracy.”
As a result, the Russian Olympic Committee has been suspended and no officials will be accredited for next year’s Winter Olympics. A number of senior officials were either banned for life or suspended.
And no one from the “leadership” of the Russian Olympic delegation in Sochi will be allowed to take on official duties in PyeongChang.
Dmitry Chernyshenko, who was the CEO of the Sochi 2014 organizing committee, was removed from the co-ordination commission for Beijing 2022. He’s also the president of the KHL.
All eyes are now on the KHL, which would have supplied the bulk of players for a Russian hockey team in PyeongChang. Previously, the Russian parliament said it would move to prevent a Russian team from being selected for the PyeongChang Games if the IOC made too strong a move.
Individual Russian athletes will be allowed to compete in South Korea — the IOC will call them an “Olympic athlete from Russia” — but they must have followed all doping protocols and not have failed any tests in the past.
The Russian flag and the Russian national anthem will be replaced by the Olympic flag and anthem.
“My country,” Burmistrov said when asked about what was more important, the idea of being an Olympian or representing your country.
He believes the idea of playing for a non-Russian team, even if it’s clearly the Russian team but by another name, would be a non-starter for most players.
“You don’t want to win the Olympics for another country,” he said. “(When you’re) born in a country, you have so much respect and we love our country.
“I think there’s no point to go play for no flag. What are you going to tell your kids? You won the Olympics for who?”
The Russian hockey federation asked President Vladimir Putin in October to allow the national team to compete as a neutral team in PyeongChang, but Putin said such an idea was “unacceptable.”
Russia officials have repeatedly refused to accept that a state-sponsored doping program existed. Such denials helped ensure that bans on its track federation and anti-doping agency won’t be lifted.
Instead they blamed a single scientist, Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of Moscow and Sochi testing laboratories, saying he was a rogue employee.
Russian athletes at last summer’s world track and field championships competed under a neutral flag. Instead of the Russian anthem being played for gold medallists, the anthem of the International Amateur Athletics Federation was played.