Anti-doping agency imposes a four-year ban on Russia
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND » Russia was slapped Monday with a four-year ban from international sports events, including next summer’s Tokyo Olympics, over a longstanding doping scandal, although its athletes will still be able to compete if they can show they are clean competitors.
The ruling by the World Anti-Doping Agency’s executive committee means that Russia’s flag, name and anthem will not appear at the Tokyo Games, and the country also could be stripped of hosting world championships in Olympic sports.
The sanctions are the harshest punishment yet for Russian state authorities who were accused of tampering with a Moscow laboratory database. Russia’s anti-doping agency can appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport within 21 days — an action it has signaled it would take.
“Russia was afforded every opportunity to get its house in order ... but it chose instead to continue in its stance of deception and denial,” WADA president Craig Reedie said.
Russian athletes can compete in major events only if they are not implicated in positive doping tests or if their data was not manipulated, according to the WADA ruling. wife’s cousin Jeanette Senerchia, whose husband has ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease after the New York Yankees great who suffered from it.
ALS patient Pat Quinn, of Yonkers, New York, picked up on it and started its spread, but when Frates and his family got involved, the phenomenon exploded on social media.
Schauffele making a name for himself with his impressive play
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA » Steve Stricker cared only about securing a spot in the first U.S. Open in his home state of Wisconsin. Still, there was something about the PGA Tour rookie in his group during a 36-hole qualifier that intrigued him.
It wasn’t just the name: Xander Schauffele.
It certainly wasn’t the resume. Schauffele had missed the cut in half of the 18 PGA Tour events he had played and was No. 345 in the world ranking. And it wasn’t the pedigree. He played at San Diego State, hardly a college golf power.
Stricker didn’t know any of that in early June of 2017, except that he liked what he saw.
That day was the turning point for Schauffele that took him from relative obscurity to four-time PGA Tour winner to top 10 in the world and his debut for the Americans in the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne.
Schauffele earned the final spot from that U.S. Open qualifier in a 5-for-2 playoff, opened with a 66 at Erin Hills and tied for fifth in his first major. Three weeks later, he won his first PGA Tour event. Since then, he won the Tour Championship, a World Golf Championship and the Tournament of Champions, each time coming from behind on the final day. At Kapalua, he shot 62 to rally from five back.