Seventeen national anti-doping agencies on Thursday called on IOC to ban Russia from the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang South Korea next February, because of its involment in one of the biggest doping scandals in the history of sport so far.
In a statement issued after a two-day meeting in Denver, 17 national agencies, including US, France, and Great Britain, claimed the 2018 Olympics Winter Games were threatened by a doping crisis.
UK anti-doping is one of the voices calling for Russia’s exclusion is particularly significant given that it took charge of thesting in Russia in early 2016, and has previously not put its name to statements condemning the country.
“Sports officals and organisations in a country should not receive accreditation for the Olympics when they intentionally violate regulations and steal clean athletes,” the national anti-doping agencies representative said.
The national anti-doping agencies call on international bodies to enact, like the IAAF, criteria allowing Russian athletes to participate in the 2018 Olympics, independenttly and neutrally when they have srious doping control protocols.
“The IOC must stop having wait- and-see behaviour and take meaningful sanctions.” the national anti-doping agencies said.
“This dereliction of duty sends a cynical message that those of favoured, insider nations within the Olympic moevent will never be punished or held accountable, violating the fundamental covenant of fairness on which sport is based.”
“We have the greatest doubt that the 2018 Olympics will be clean due to the incomplete investigation of individual doping cases of Russian atheletes during the 2014 Olympics in Sochi and inadequate controls for Russian athletes on four years,” they added.
Seventeen national anti-doping agencies call on IOC to ban Russia from the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang. (Source:www.mykhel.com)
Russia has set up a state doping system, as revealed in the McLarent report, which led some international federations to deprive Russian atheletes of the 2016 Olympics Games in Rio de Jenairo.
The International Paralympic Committee, which had deprived all Russian athletes of the 2016 Paralympic Games, announced on Wednesday that Russian Paralympic athletes are allowed to compete in some qualifying events for the 2018 Olympics under a neutral flag, while maintaning the ban of the 2016 Paralympic Games at least until next November.
