Russia braces for IOC Rio ruling
No place for doping in sport, insists President Putin
Russia insisted Friday it expects to avoid a blanket ban from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on its competitors at the Rio Olympic Games despite its track and field squad losing an appeal over a suspension for state-sponsored doping.
The IOC’s executive board will hold a conference call on Sunday to discuss banning Russia from the Rio Games, which starts August 5.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled against Russia’s athletes in a decision seen as a key indicator as the IOC debates whether to kick out the whole Russian team.
Russia is a sporting powerhouse whose absence from Rio would create the biggest crisis in decades for the Olympic Movement, and Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a final push to avert a ban.
“The official position of the Russian authorities – the government, the president and all of us – is that in sport there is not and can be no place for doping,” Putin told government ministers.
The Kremlin strongman ordered officials to cooperate with the IOC, the World AntiDoping Agency (WADA) and Russian Olympic Committee to establish an anti-doping commission.
The IOC is facing international pressure to act tough on Russia and ban the entire team over the revelations of a state-run doping system that has seen the country cheat its way to victory.
Fourteen national anti-doping agencies including the US, and Germany sent a joint letter to IOC President Thomas Bach on Thursday urging him to ban Russia from Rio Games.
Officials in Moscow have slammed the decision by CAS to reject its appeal against a ban from the world athletics body IAAF, calling it part of a broader political campaign by the West against Russia.
The suspension of the track and field team already means that star athletes like pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva and hurdler Sergey Shubenkov will not be in Rio. Isinbayeva slammed the CAS ruling as a “funeral for athletics.”
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko – who has clung on despite the scandal – said Moscow now hopes the IOC will defer to individual international sporting federations to decide whether other Russian squads can compete.
The CAS ruling has been the focus of Olympic attention since an independent WADA report this week said Russia ran a “state-dictated failsafe system” of drug cheating in 30 sports at the 2014 Sochi Games and other major events.
But Russia has found support from some international sports bodies, with the International Judo Federation insisting all clean athletes should be allowed to take part in Rio.
Individual Russian federations said they were now looking nervously ahead for the IOC to make its next move.
The IAAF banned all of the Russian track and field team over allegations of state-sponsored doping but said athletes who prove they were not tainted by their country’s corrupt system could be cleared.
The IAAF has only given permission for one Russian team member to compete in Rio as a neutral: US-based long jumper Darya Klishina.
The IOC has appeared to back the principle that international sporting federations could clear individual athletes in case of a blanket ban, but with just two weeks to go until Rio time is slipping away.