Pole vault great Isinbayeva given key role, vows to fight suspensions
>> MOSCOW: Pole vault great Yelena Isinbayeva said she will oppose blanket bans of Russian athletes after being named the head of the suspended Russian anti-doping agency’s new supervisory board.
Isinbayeva was appointed chair of the 10-person board, which also includes a senior Russian Sports Ministry official, on Wednesday without consultation with the World AntiDoping Agency.
Isinbayeva, who missed this year’s Olympics when the Russian track and field team was banned, said “of course it’s in my interests not to allow the situation which I ended up in, so that our athletes from our country are treated the same as everyone else.’’
The agency was suspended last year over cover-up allegations and requires Wada certification to start carrying out doping tests again.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko said Russia will resort to legal action in response to allegations of institutionalised doping.
Mutko, who was sports minister for the 2012 and 2014 Olympics, the main period covered by the Wada report, told the Tass state news agency “now we need to calmly move into the legal arena, which is what will be done.”
It is not immediately clear what course any legal action might take.
Mutko also argued it would not have been possible for Russia to try to cover up doping on such a large scale at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, saying that because athletes were also tested at competitions outside Russia, “it was simply not realistic in Sochi to do what they are accusing us of.’’
Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, said on Friday he wants a lifetime ban for any Russian athletes or officials proven to have taken part in statesponsored doping.
Bach was speaking after more than 1,000 Russian athletes in 30-plus summer and winter Olympic and Paralympic sports were implicated in a doping conspiracy in the second and final part of an independent report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren for Wada.
“Professor McLaren’s completed report demonstrates a fundamental attack on the integrity of sport,” Bach said in a video statement on the IOC’s website.
“For me as an Olympian, any athlete or official who took part in such a sophisticated manipulation system should be excluded for life from any participation in the Olympic Games in whatever capacity.”