Russia banned from Winter Olympics over historic doping scandal
Athletes will be forced to compete as neutrals Former sports minister given Games life ban
Russian athletes will be forced to compete as neutrals at February’s Winter Olympics after the country’s Olympic committee was banned last night over the biggest drugs scandal in history.
The International Olympic Committee finally took meaningful action against what it acknowledged had been “systematic” cheating by the nation at London 2012 and Sochi 2014, outlawing its flag, uniform and anthem from Pyeongchang 2018.
More than a year after refusing to throw Russia out of Rio 2016 following the publication of a World Anti-doping Agency-commissioned report that found Russia guilty of a cover-up that included an Fsb-assisted sample-swapping scheme, the IOC announced the findings of its own independent investigation into the scandal.
The report by former Swiss president Samuel Schmid ruled that the Russian Ministry of Sport and Russian Olympic Committee bore ultimate responsibility for what IOC president Thomas Bach branded “an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympic Games and sport”, one which Wada investigator Prof Richard Mclaren last year said involved 1,000 athletes.
Russian deputy prime minister Vitaly Mutko, sports minister at the time of the scandal, was also handed a lifetime Olympic ban, which could lead to calls for him to be replaced as head of the country’s World Cup organising committee.
However, the report found insufficient evidence that he had personally orchestrated the scheme or had known of it, despite the publication last week of the diaries of the former director of the Moscow laboratory which allege meetings and conversations with Mutko about it.
Schmid stopped short of describing what went on as “state-sponsored” – a conclusion reached by previous investigations – while he said there was “no evidence” to implicate Russian President Vladimir Putin, who claimed last month that accusations against his country had been invented as revenge for its perceived interference in Donald Trump’s election as US president.
Russia, which has repeatedly denied state-sponsored doping, had threatened to boycott February’s Games if the IOC forced its athletes to compete as neutrals and a decision on that is expected today.
Bach last night defended the time taken by the IOC to reach a similar decision made last year by the International Paralympic Committee and two years ago by the International Association of Athletics Federations, declaring Russia’s right to “due process” had only now been respected. What he called “proportionate sanctions” were handed down by the IOC’S executive board.
As well as banning the ROC and Mutko, it suspended the latter’s former deputy, Yuri Nagornykh, from all future Games and ROC president Alexander Zhukov’s IOC membership.
It ordered the ROC to reimburse costs incurred in the investigation and to contribute $15 million (£11.17 m) towards establishing a new independent testing authority.
The IOC also announced eligibility criteria that excluded any athlete that had served a drugs ban and required everyone else to undergo “targeted tests” and “other testing requirements”.
Bach said he was “very sorry” for clean athletes robbed because of the scandal and said the IOC would try to organise ceremonies in Pyeongchang for those due reallocated medals. They include Britain’s fourman bobsleigh team, originally fifth behind two doping Russian crews in Sochi, who should now receive bronze. Bach also branded any boycott of the Games as unjustified, adding: “An Olympic boycott has never achieved anything.”
Zhukov said the IOC’S decision was unfair on innocent athletes, adding: “They cannot and should not be held responsible for violations allowed earlier, just as they shouldn’t feel like pariahs at a big sporting celebration without national identification, without a hymn, without a flag.”
The UK Government welcomed the decision, with Tracey Crouch, the Sports Minister, posting on Twitter: “Pleased that the IOC has taken this decision.”