A SPINELESS BETRAYAL
MARTHA KELNER lRussia dodges ban from Games despite massive drugs racket lIOC chief Bach ‘just like Pontius Pilate’ as he passes the buck
THE STAGE is set for the most chaotic and discredited Olympic Games in history after the Russian team was cleared yesterday to compete in Rio, despite its enormous state-sponsored doping racket that has disgraced world sport for years.
The International Olympic Committee rejected calls from dozens of anti-doping agencies and hundreds of clean athletes, instead bowing to pressure from the Russian government and president Vladimir Putin to keep them in the fold.
Delivering a ruling many view as a craven dereliction of duty, they passed the buck to the individual federations for each sport to decide whether Russians should be allowed to take part in Rio next month.
With only 11 days until the Olympics begin, legal experts warned that even if these federations have the appetite to enforce a proper ban on Russia there is not enough time.
It is expected that, with the exception of track and field which has already banned Russian athletes after systematic doping in the sport was revealed last year, the country will field a strong team in Brazil and the damage to the future of the Olympic movement is untold.
The response from British athletes and the anti-doping community to a ruling issued following a three-hour conference call of members of the IOC’s executive board was damning.
Olympic gold medal-winning rower Mark Hunter told BBC Radio 5 Live: ‘I’m sickened by it, it was a chance for the IOC to really make a stand. You are going to have Russian athletes sitting on the start knowing that people are sitting beside them that aren’t really trusting or believing them.’
Travis Tygart, president of the US Anti-Doping Agency, was dismayed. ‘In response to the most important moment for clean athletes and the integrity of the Olympic Games, the IOC has refused to take decisive leadership,’ he said, ‘The decision regarding Russian participation and the confusing mess left in its wake is a significant blow to the rights of clean athletes.
‘It is so frustrating that in this incredibly important moment, they would pass the baton to sports federations who may lack the adequate expertise or collective will to appropriately address the situation within the short window prior to the Games. The conflict of interest is glaring.’
The IOC had been facing calls to ban the entire Russian team from the Games after a staggering report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren revealed a state-sponsored doping programme operating across the ‘vast majority’ of Olympic sports since 2011.
At least 312 positive tests were covered up over a three-year period and the detail of the deception was shocking, including a Russian secret police agent posing as a sewer engineer to gain access to a laboratory at the Sochi Winter Olympics and manipulate doping samples.
The IOC’s German president Thomas Bach, a former Olympic fencer known to be very friendly with Putin, shirked the chance to One-woman team: long-jumper Klishina will be in Rio respond to the biggest and most brazen display of mass cheating in sporting history by issuing the ultimate sanction. Instead, Bach attempted to curry favour with enraged clean athletes by pointing out the ‘very strict criteria’ every Russian athlete must fulfil if they are to qualify to compete in Rio.
This includes never having been sanctioned for a doping violation, previously submitting to ‘reliable adequate international antidoping tests’ and subjecting themselves to a ‘rigorous additional out-of-competition testing programme’. Just how rigorous this testing programme could be with less than a fortnight to go before the Games is open to debate.
CHAOS will reign in the Rio run-up with 27 federations left with 11 days to carry out an individual analysis of the anti-doping record of more than 350 Russian competitors. Each decision will then have to be approved by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The IOC also came under fire for introducing a new rule whereby Russians who have previously been convicted of doping are excluded from Rio, while those from other nations are clear to compete. It means swimmer Yulia Efimova, who tested positive in 2013, would be gone while the likes of twice-banned USA sprinter Justin Gatlin are free to compete.
Sports lawyer Gregory Ioannidis warned last night: ‘This is a very messy situation and if you have already served your ban, why should you not go to the Olympics? It is a clear-cut case of discrimination and at the end of the day the Olympic Games are under the complete and full jurisdiction of the IOC. Bach is acting like a Pontius Pilate figure in all of this, putting the responsibility elsewhere and letting them (federations) decide.’
The International Tennis Federation was the first governing body to clear seven Russian players to compete in Rio. Swimming’s FINA, which awarded Putin its highest honour in 2014 and opted to hold its World Championships in the Russian city of Kazan in 2015, despite evidence of systemic doping already in the public domain, is unlikely to have the stomach to enforce any such ban.
Russia’s weightlifting team will almost certainly be banned from Rio after repeated anti-doping violations and rowing’s world governing body FISA are expected to take a dim view on the country’s participation at the Olympics.
Two Russian athletes had been granted exception by track and field’s IAAF to compete in Rio. But long jumper Darya Klishina could be a one-woman track-and-field team after whistleblower Yulia Stepanova, an 800m runner who exposed the full scale of Russian cheating, was told she cannot compete because of her previous doping ban. Stepanova, now living in hiding with her husband and son, wanted to be at Rio as a ‘neutral’ athlete.
But Tygart, the USADA head responsible for bringing down the Lance Armstrong empire, said the decision to exclude Stepanova will hinder the fight against doping in the future. ‘The decision to refuse her entry into the Games is incomprehensible,’ he said. ‘It will undoubtedly deter whistleblowers in the future from coming forward.’
There is anger among highranking sports officials that the IOC watered down their position after they were previously understood to be close to issuing a blanket ban.
A source close to the IOC said: ‘Is it the IOC or IOU? Several members are spitting feathers at the backsliding that has taken place. Putin must be having the mother of all Dacha lunches. This decision has tarnished Rio and damaged the IOC. What example does it set to the next generation? It is extremely depressing. The only way to deal with it was to ban the Russian delegation — no flags, no uniforms — and let clean athletes prove their innocence to the international federation and then to compete under the IOC flag.’
But Bach defended the decision and said: ‘It’s fine to talk about collective responsibility and banning everybody but we have to be able to look in the eyes of the individual athletes concerned by this decision. I am really convinced of this decision.’