Russia loses appeal, could face total Olympic ban over doping
Russia lost its appeal against the Olympic ban on its track and field athletes on Thursday, following allegations of systematic doping and cover-ups. This decision could add pressure on the IOC to exclude the country entirely from next month’s games in Rio.
A spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry called the court decision “a crime against sport.”
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), based in Switzerland, is considered sport’s highest court. While the allegations were for track and field programs, there is the possibility that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will now exclude Russia from all sports… meaning no Russian participation in the Olympics.
Potential Ban of all Athletes
The International Olympic Committee says that it is in the midst of the process of exploring the “legal options with regard to a collective ban of all Russian athletes for the Olympic Games 2016.”
The case for the ban was the widespread and endemic doping within the Russian athletes and the apparent indifference (or some cases, encouragement) of the state. Perhaps that’s why Russia has had the most offenses since 2014.
“CAS rejects the claims/appeal of the Russian Olympic Committee and 68 Russian athletes.” — CAS Statement
Russia won the 3rd largest number of medals in the Summer Olympics in 2012, but some of those results are in question because of the doping allegations.
The Krelim was, predictably, pretty pissed off
“We are speaking here about field and track athletes, who had been preparing hard for the Olympics, who have nothing to do with doping, who have nothing to do with none of accusations and suspicions, who had regularly been tested by foreign anti-doping agencies.” — Dmitry Peskov in Russia’s Tass news agency
The ban on the track and field team for the upcoming games was put in place last year by the IAAF following an independent investigation. The resulting report claims “rampant, state-sponsored, systematic” doping in Russian athletics. Last month, the governing body rules that Russian had made unsatifactory progress in fixing the problem. This led to the appeal.
Russian officials say they have taken steps to clean up the sport and argues that a blanket ban on all athletes in track and field (and perhaps other sports) is unfair to athletes with no record of doping. The World Anti-Doping Agency disagrees.
Push for banning all Russian participants
“This is not about punishing some athletes for the actions of others,” said WADA President Craig Reedie. He says it’s about the country failing to abide by the worldwide anti-doping code.
“This is vital to ensure that all athletes are competing on a level playing-field.” — WADA President Craig Reedie (ABC News)
The organization has asked the IOC to consider banning all Russian athletes in all sports for this year’s Olympics.
