Calls for blanket ban on Russia from 2018 Games slammed

PRAGUE: A congress of national Olympic committees slammed calls for a blanket ban on Russian athletes for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, warning against politics interfering with sports.

Meeting in Prague for two days, the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) said in the final resolutions that protecting clean athletes “continues to be a top priority”.

The ANOC had “full confidence in the ongoing investigations by the Schmid and Oswald Commissions” looking into doping cases cited in the McLaren report alleging state-sponsored doping in Russia in 2011-2015.

But the ANOC said it was “unacceptable that specific sanctions are already being demanded in the public domain before these two commissions have even completed their work”.

“This includes, in particular, calls by some for a resolution by (the anti-doping agency) WADA for a blanket ban of all Russian athletes for the Olympic Winter Games Pyeongchang 2018, because this would be an infringement of the WADA code.”

Russian cross-country skier Alexander Legkov became the first athlete stripped of an Olympic medal from the 2014 Sochi Games on Wednesday, based on an Oswald Commission conclusion.

The International Olympic Committee are due to take a decision on the participation of Russian athletes in Pyeongchang in December.

Speaking at a press conference after the congress, ANOC secretary general Gunilla Lindberg said that “all over the world when we have an investigation, you we don’t make comments and you don’t judge people before the investigation is finalised”.

Jiri Kejval, head of the Czech Olympic Committee hosting the congress, said politics and sports were two different worlds.

“Politicians look at what divides them, we the athletes look at the things that unite us,” he said.