IOC bans five Russians, says Rodchenkov credible

BERLIN: Five more Russian competitors from the 2014 Sochi Olympics were banned for life over anti-doping rule violations on Monday with the International Olympic Committee saying Russia’s former anti-doping chief-turnedwhistleblower was telling the truth.

The banned athletes include Dmitrii Trunenkov and Aleksei Negodailo, both in the gold-medal winning four-man bobsleigh team, plus biathlon relay silver medallists Yana Romanova and Olga Vilukhina, who also won event.

The latest bans bring the total number of Russian athletes suspended from the Games for life to 19 this month, with the IOC annulling results following widespread doping and tampering with samples of Russian athletes during the Sochi Games.

The IOC also published its reasoning behind the lifetime ban of the first Russian to be sanctioned as part of its investigation, cross country gold medallist Alexander Legkov. silver in the 7.5 km

The IOC said it was proven that Legkov was part of a scheme to tamper with the samples of Russians at Sochi.

The Olympic body is re-testing all Russian athletes’ samples from those Games following revelations by Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of Moscow’s discredited anti-doping laboratory, of a scheme to cover up home competitors’ positive samples.

The IOC launched two investigations following Rodchenkov’s claims with one focusing on the Sochi Games re-tests and the other looking at allegations backed doping.

The IOC said that in Legkov’s case, evidence provided by Rodchenkov, now living in the US, was used and deemed credible. “The (IOC) Disciplinary Commission has come to the conclusion that, whatever his motivation may be and whichever wrongdoing he may have committed in the past, Dr Rodchenkov was telling the truth when he provided explanations of the cover-up scheme that he managed,” it said. of systematic state-