IOC lashes out at Russia, Kenya
Says nations must prove every athlete is clean or they will be banned from Rio
It was toxic water contamination that first threatened the Rio Olympics.
Next, it was mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus. And now, with the Summer Games just six weeks away, athletes with vials of performance-enhancing drugs have finally made the Olympic movement jump into action.
On Tuesday, the International Olympic Committee ruled no Russian or Kenyan athlete — whether they are in track, boxing, rugby, weightlifting or any other sport — can compete in Rio unless their sport’s international federation determines they are clean and eligible.
It’s a dramatic statement against doping, but what it will actually amount to by the time Rio’s opening ceremony gets underway is anybody’s guess. Proving athletes aren’t doping might be the only thing harder than proving they are.
The IOC’s decision raised so many more questions than it answered, that it was easy to imagine sport lawyers around the world packing their briefcases for the inevitable trip to the international Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to resolve it all.
“I don’t see that they have the authority to do this under the (World Anti-Doping) Code,” said Paul Greene, a leading American sports lawyer who routinely defends athletes at CAS.
The Russian Olympic Committee has already said it would appeal the “legally indefensible” Rio ban of its track and field athletes originally levied by the IAAF last week.
And now that the IOC has expanded that measure to include all athletes from both Russia and Kenya — which has had numerous positive tests among its distance runners — more appeals seem likely.
Still, Canadian athletes who have been vocal about problems with the global anti-doping system were pleased with the IOC’s move.
“For a long time clean athletes have been asking for protection, they’ve been asking for justice and they haven’t gotten it at all, so I think it’s about time. There has to be collective responsibility,” two-time Olympic hurdler Perdita Felicien said.
“For the first time the punishments are fitting the crime.” If the ruling stands, that is. “It could be a case where the IOC knows this is actually not going to fly but we’ll say this, we look good, we sound good and then everyone will be in Rio like nothing happened.”
The IOC did give Russia a symbolic win by saying any athletes cleared for Rio could compete under the Russian flag.
The IAAF had said they must compete under a neutral flag.
But depending how seriously international sport federations take the task of clearing individual athletes and what happens at CAS, it could be a far smaller team for the nation that sent over 400 athletes in two dozen sports to London and finished fourth in the medal table.
Kenya and Russia, who have both been declared non-compliant by the World Anti-Doping Agency, arrived at this place in different ways.
Kenya’s problem is “lack of funding and attention” while Russia’s includes “serious allegations of manipulation of the doping system,” IOC president Thomas Bach said.
But the end result is the same and the IOC has “serious doubts on the presumption of innocence” of athletes from Russia and Kenya, he said.
Bach also acknowledged “some deficiencies” in the global anti-doping system and said a full review of WADA would take place in 2017.
As far as how international federations should determine which athletes will be allowed to compete in Rio, the IOC said only “the absence of a positive national anti-doping test” would not be enough and they should take into account other “reliable adequate testing systems.”
Figuring out what that means, and if it’s even allowed under the antidoping code, will undoubtedly keep lawyers at CAS busy.
But for Canadian race walker Evan Dunfee, who exposed Russian corruption of the anti-doping system in his sport long before WADA or the IOC acted, it should be a simple test.
“An athlete has to prove they are in an anti-doping system that is as good as the rest of us have to deal with,” Dunfee said.