Russia ban
Olympics body seeks legal opinion before taking final call, says won’t back any international events in the country
LAUSANNE: The International Olympic Committee barred Russia’s Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko from the Rio Games and withdrew backing for international events in Russia over a state-run doping programme, but delayed ruling on a complete ban on the country until after a key court case on Thursday.
With the Rio Games due to start on August 5, the IOC executive committee held emergency talks Tuesday on what Olympic president Thomas Bach called a “shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sport and on the Olympic Games” by the Russian government.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which commissioned an independent inquiry into Russian doping, has led international calls for Russia to be banned from Rio over revelations of widespread state-run doping at the Sochi said it will not grant any Rio accreditation “to any official of the Russian Ministry of Sport or any person implicated in the (McLaren) report.”
That includes Mutko, who has denied that the government directed the doping programme. He told the Interfax news agency he was hoping for a “reasonable” decision from the IOC on Russia’s participation in Rio.
Mutko said he has suspended five top deputies, including his number two Yury Nagornykh, described as the point man for running the cheating scheme.
KEY RULING DUE
WADA, the German Olympic committee and anti-doping bodies have backed calls for Russia’s outright ban from Rio -- that would be the first time a country has been banned from an Olympic Games over doping.
But the Association of Summer Olympic Federations and other groups have urged caution, pointing to the ethical issues of punishing athletes who have never failed drug tests.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has already barred Russian track and field contenders from Rio after an inquiry into widespread state-sponsored doping in the sport.
The CAS will rule on whether the IAAF had grounds to impose a blanket ban on a national federation, since such a suspension inevitably punished athletes with no positive drug test on their record.
IAAF president Sebastian Coe attended a CAS hearing in Geneva on Tuesday ahead of the ruling.
IOC executives also ordered a reanalysis of all samples by Russian athletes taken at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Because the Sochi Games are so tainted, the IOC said it would not back any international sports events in Russia.