Russian speedskater declines invitation
A Russian speedskater refused her place at the Pyeongchang Olympics on Tuesday after several of her teammates weren’t invited.
Olga Graf, a two-time bronze medalist from the 2014 Sochi Games, was going to compete in the team-pursuit race next month.
“All my hopes to compete for the Olympic podium are fated not to be realized because sport has become a bargaining chip in filthy political games,” Graf said in a statement on social media.
Graf is the first Russian to refuse an IOC invitation to compete at Pyeongchang. That leaves 168 “Olympic Athletes from Russia” who must compete under a neutral flag because of IOC sanctions related to doping at the Sochi Olympics. As part of the punishment, Russian athletes compete by invitation only.
Russia was left with only three eligible women’s speedskaters, including Graf. Three women race in the team pursuit, but of the three Russian women, one is a sprint specialist unsuited to the longer event. Graf could have competed in some individual races.
Graf won bronze in the team pursuit and the 3,000-meter individual race in Sochi.
Putin’s opinion: While branding the World Anti-Doping Agency’s key witness a “nut job,” Vladimir Putin said he hopes Russia soon can leave its years of doping scandals behind.
“I hope that this page will be turned, and moreover, in the very near future,” the Russian president told a gathering of his supporters in Moscow ahead of March’s presidential election.
However, Putin continued to portray Russia as a victim of political intrigue designed to tarnish the good name of its athletes. Real doping problems in Russia, he said, had been exaggerated for political reasons using suspect evidence.
He reserved scathing remarks for Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory who described running a doping program and cover-ups over several years on orders from Russian government officials.
Referring to him as “this nut job Rodchenkov,” Putin said he was an unreliable witness who “should be put in prison.” Putin also repeated a claim he made last month that Rodchenkov, who is under witness protection in the United States and says he fears for his life, is “under the control of the U.S. special services.”
Sample worries: The IOC is “very concerned” about claims that the new sample bottles for the Pyeongchang Olympics can be opened, and the Swedish national anti-doping agency has said it will stop using them.
The doping bottles were introduced last year to increase security after investigators found Russians were able to surreptitiously open bottles at the Sochi Olympics and exchange dirty urine samples with clean ones previously provided the same athlete. However, the World Anti-Doping Agency is now examining the new bottles after receiving reports from a laboratory that the bottles can be opened manually when frozen. Snowboarder on the mend: Injured Olympic halfpipe champion Iouri Podladtchikov tweeted a picture of himself in a hospital gown along with the message “I am doing OK,” after a scary wreck at the Winter X Games. The snowboarder known as the I-Pod has a broken nose, but scans showed no signs of brain or neck trauma. In one tweet, posted late Monday, he says: “Thank you so much for all the messages. I am so sorry for the mess of yesterday. I am doing OK.”