IOC Upholds Olympic Ban on Russia’s Track and Field Athletes

russia ban 2Following an IOC summit in the Swiss city of Lausanne, the body’s president announced that it had voted unanimously to support the decision last Friday by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to keep Russia’s track and field athletes barred from the Olympics because of the country’s failure to overcome systemic doping among its sportsmen.

Speaking at a news conference, the president, Thomas Bach, said in light of the “serious allegations” against Russia, the IOC had decided to support the IAAF proposal that all Russian athletes hoping to compete in Rio will have to pass individual evaluations by IAAF.

The IOC statement seemed to affirm that most Russian track and field athletes will now miss the Olympics this summer.

However, it also appeared to open a small window for individual Russian athletes and offer a potential salve for Moscow’s pride by suggesting that clean athletes might yet still compete under the Russian national flag.

According to Bach, those track and field athletes deemed clean by the IAAF would be allowed to compete as part of the Russian national Olympic team, apparently easing restrictions proposed by IAAF which has said no Russian track and field athletes will compete under the country’s flag in Rio.

Bach noted Russia’s team, like all other countries, is formally sent to Rio by its national Olympic committee, which he added is currently not banned. According to Bach, this meant Russian track and field athletes, approved by IAAF, would go to Rio as part of the Russian Olympic team.

“When it comes to the Olympic Games all athletes are part of the team of the Russian Olympic Committee. And this is a different situation,” Bach said. “If there are athletes qualified, then they will compete as members of the team of the Russian Olympic Committee because only the national Olympic committee can enter athletes for the Olympic Games. Contrary to the national federation, the Russian Olympic committee is not suspended.”

Bach’s comments seemed to raise the possibility that even clean Russian athletes would not be allowed to compete on behalf of the country.

However, the IOC’s proposal appeared to partly contradict the position set out by the IAAF last week when it announced the ban.

The IAAF said then that no Russian athletes, even those approved as clean, would be able to compete as part of the Russian national team, saying they would have to attend as individuals under a “neutral flag.”

The body said that it had specifically created a new rule to ensure that Russian athletes who were able to prove they were clean would not compete as part of the Russian team.

“The rule change that was recommended states very clearly that those who fall outside of this scope [of the doping system and allowed to compete in Rio] will not be under the Russian flag and will be under a neutral competition system,” said Rune Andersen, who oversaw the IAAF evaluation of Russia’s reform efforts, speaking on Friday.

It was not immediately clear whether the IAAF approved of the IOC proposal.

In any case, the IOC declaration appeared to confirm that very few Russian track and field athletes would compete at Rio. The IAAF has already said it believes only a handful of Russian athletes will be able to prove to the body that they should be allowed to compete as individuals.

On Friday, the IAAF had described that route to Rio as only a “very tiny crack” in the door. To qualify, athletes would have to prove they were not “tainted” by the systemic doping in the country and were also able to present clean tests taken outside of the country.

“There won’t be many athletes who manage to get through that crack in that door,” Rune Andersen, an investigator for IAAF, said at the rulings announcement in Vienna on Friday.

Ahead of IOC meeting, Russia’s sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, said in an interview with the news agency Interfax that he was not expecting “any kind of decisions” from the IOC.

Russia’s track and field athletes were first suspended in November after the World Anti-Doping Agency published a damning report accusing the country of running a sprawling coverup of doping, supported by the F.S.B. security services. The country committed to fixing its anti-doping procedures, but after a six-month evaluation, an IAAF commission found a “deep-rooted culture of doping” still existed in Russia and that it was still too difficult to be sure which athletes were not part of it.

As the IOC announcement was made, Russia’s track and field athletes were competing at the country’s national championships. Held in the sleepy provincial city of Cheboksary, about 400 miles from Moscow, the event is normally the final qualifying event for Russia’s Olympic team selection.

Athletes, with the words “Fair Play” printed to their competitor numbers, pressed for qualifying results in front of a small crowd.

Ahead of the IOC announcement, the competitors were glum.

“One thousand four hundred days of preparation and in one day it’s all finished. You can probably compare it to the explosion of an atom bomb, just without human casualties,” said Lyukman Adams, a triple jumper, who has won silver at the 2014 European Championships.

Sergey Shubenkov, the 110m hurdle world champion, told reporters he was trying not think about the ban while he ran. “I’m concentrating on my race,” he said

Shubenkov, who has run the hurdles in under 13 seconds, was among Russia’s best medal hopes.

Adams, echoing several other Russia athletes, said Russia’s track and field federation should appeal the IAAF ban in court.

Many Russians feel the doping investigations and the Olympic ban are part of a political campaign to punish Russia, echoing comments from officials. Mutko told Interfax that athletes were “hostages of these political decisions, and of the pressure that’s being exerted on the country.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday called the IAAF decision “unfair.”

“There’s no chance of us going to the Olympics, because nobody wants us there,” said Andrei Foren, who was watching his daughter train at the stadium. “They’ve united against us.”

Article Appeared @http://abcnews.go.com/International/ioc-upholds-olympic-ban-russias-track-field-athletes/story?id=40010177

 

 

 

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