Paralympics ban Russia in wake of doping crisis
Decision comes as Russians await ruling on whether Olympics will also ban them
The sports-doping crisis emanating from Russia escalated yet again Friday, as officials said Russia would be barred from this summer’s Paralympics because of a state-run doping scheme that has also imperiled the country’s eligibility for the coming Rio Olympics.
An investigation into claims of an elaborate doping program by Russia’s former anti-doping lab director found that 35 drug violations among Russian Paralympians had been covered up by the country’s sports ministry.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said in a statement that “in light of the prevailing doping culture endemic within Russian sport, at the very highest levels,” Russia’s Paralympic officials appeared “unable or unwilling to ensure compliance with and the enforcement of the IPC’s anti-doping code within its own national jurisdiction.”
Hours before the announcement, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it had identified 45 more athletes who tested positive for banned substances at the 2008 Beijing Games and the 2012 London Games. More than half of them were medallists, further establishing that many performances at recent Olympic Games were fraudulent.
The news Friday intensified pressure on Olympic officials to discipline Russia’s Olympians before the Rio Games. Olympic executives are expected to convene Sunday to discuss penalties against Russia; antidoping advocates have requested that the IOC take action similar to what Paralympic officials, who typically act in lock step with Olympic officials, initiated Friday.
The IOC’s announcement about doping violations followed a broad re-examination of drug-test results and was the second of its kind since May, when Olympic officials revealed that a first round of reanalysis of Olympic samples found that 53 athletes from at least 12 countries had used banned substances at the last two Summer Games.
Results from the second wave of retesting further tainted the results of those competitions, bringing the total number of implicated athletes to 98.
The new results affected 30 more athletes from eight countries who competed in four sports in Beijing, and 15 athletes from nine countries who competed in two sports in London, according to the IOC.
The IOC said it could not immediately identify the implicated athletes for legal reasons and was in the process of informing the individuals — 23 of whom won medals in Beijing — along with their national Olympic committees and relevant sport federations.
Olympic officials are under fierce pressure after revelations of a government-run doping program in Russia that went undetected for years, corrupted the results of both the Winter and Summer Games, and has called into question global sports’ anti-doping system, as well as sports officials’ willingness to expose drug offences.
“The new reanalysis once again shows the commitment of the IOC in the fight against doping,” Thomas Bach, president of the committee, said in a statement on Friday.
Last month, as allegations about Russia’s systematic doping mounted, Bach called the anti-doping system deficient and ordered a sweeping reexamination of its structure after this Summer’s Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Richard W. Pound of Montreal, a former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said Friday that it was natural for science to improve over the years, revealing more doping offences.
“The system is actually pretty good,” Pound said. “It’s the people sitting around the table that don’t want it to work.”
Russia’s track team has been barred from the Games. Olympic officials expressed support of that decision, and a sports arbitration court this week denied Russia’s legal appeal.
Though early allegations of widespread doping in Russia centred on track and field, recent investigations have concluded that the scheme transcended any one individual sport, touching disciplines as disparate as bobsled and weightlifting.