WADA says IOC must consider banning entire Russian team from Rio Games
MONTREAL: The International Olympic Committee should consider banned the entire Russian team from the Games in Rio de Janeiro next month, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency writes KEIR RADNEDGE.
Canadian Professor Richard McLaren produced a damning report for WADA into the Russian strategy of operating a widespread doping and cover-up system but he did not make any recommendations on his findings.
WADA then took up the baton, urging that “the necessary decisions should be taken by the relevant organizations based on their own rules and regulations.”
These include, notably, that the IOC and the International Paralympic Committee should considered banning “all athletes submitted by the Russian Olympic Committee and the Russian Paralympic Committee.”
International sports federations should also consider their own reactions and Russian government officials should be denied access to international competitions, including Rio 2016.
WADA also proposes that the FIFA ethics committee should study allegations concerning football and the role played by a member of its governing council, Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko.
Sir Craig Reedie, an IOC vice-president who is also president of WADA, described the report, in an interview with the BBC, as “a real horror story.”
Manipulation
WADA noted the McLaren report’s conclusion that Russia’s Ministry of Sport “directed, controlled and oversaw the manipulation of athletes’ analytical results and sample swapping, with the active participation and assistance of the Federal Security Service (FSB); the Center of Sports Preparation of National Teams of Russia (CSP); and, both Moscow and Sochi laboratories.”
Reedie added: “Shamefully, the McLaren Report corroborates the allegations, exposing a modus operandi of serious manipulation of the doping control process in the satellite laboratory set up in Sochi for the 2014 Games; and, the Moscow laboratory since 2011 and after the Sochi Games.
“Not only does the evidence implicate the Russian Ministry of Sport in running a doping system that’s sole aim was to subvert the doping control process, it also states that there was active participation and assistance of the Federal Security Service and the Center of Sports Preparation of National Teams of Russia.”
He pointed out that the manipulation included the doping control process of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, the 2013 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Moscow and the 2013 World University Games in Kazan.
Russia had also sought to circumvent anti-doping processes before the 2012 London Games.
Reedie added: “As the international Agency – responsible for leading the collaborative, global, clean sport movement – WADA is calling on the Sports Movement to impose the strongest possible measures to protect clean sport for Rio 2016 and beyond.”
Subversion
Since the report revealed “such subversion in 30 sports, including 20 Olympic summer sports and Paralympic sports, the presumption of innocence of athletes in these sports, and in all Russian sports, is seriously called into question.
“Accordingly, WADA recommends to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to consider, under their respective Charters, to decline entries, for Rio 2016, of all athletes submitted by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and the Russian Paralympic Committee.
“Furthermore, any exceptional entry of a Russian athlete should be considered by the IOC and IPC for participation under a neutral flag and in accordance with very strict criteria.”
Reedie and Olivier Niggli, WADA’s new director-general, said “all persons from the Russian Ministry of Sport and other government departments and agencies that are implicated by the Report, including RUSADA, [should be] dismissed from their roles.”
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