Russia Banned From Next Two Olympics
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The World Anti-Doping Agency executive committee handed down the most severe punishment to date in the years-long Russian doping saga, issuing a four-year ban that will bar Russia from competing at the next two Olympic Games.
The decision means Russia will have no formal presence at next year’s Summer Games or the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing and will be barred from most major international competition through 2023, including FIFA’s World Cup, the Youth Olympic Games, Paralympics, world championships and other major sporting events subject to World Anti-Doping Code.
Similar to the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, Russians who have not been implicated in the country’s state-sponsored doping scheme will be allowed to compete in Tokyo as unaffiliated athletes. In PyeongChang, 168 Russians competed as “Olympic Athletes from Russia.”
After being banned from the 2018 Games, the country and its Russian Anti-Doping Agency were conditionally reinstated in September 2018 , but Russian officials were caught earlier this year manipulating data from its Moscow anti-doping laboratory and misleading WADA investigators , prompting a new chapter in a doping scheme that continues to roil the international sports community.
WADA’s executive committee met Monday in Lausanne, Switzerland, where it considered recommendations from WADA’s Compliance Review Committee . The committee voted to give the Russian Anti-Doping Agency formal notice of its noncompliance with the World Anti-Doping Code.
“For too long, Russian doping has detracted from clean sport,” WADA president Craig Reedie said in a statement. “The blatant breach by the Russian authorities of RUSADA’s reinstatement conditions, approved by the [executive committee] in September 2018, demanded a robust response. That is exactly what has been delivered today. Russia was afforded every opportunity to get its house in order and rejoin the global anti-doping community for the good of its athletes and of the integrity of sport, but it chose instead to continue in its stance of deception and denial.”
Russia now has 21 days to respond. If it disagrees with the WADA ruling, it can protest the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which would have final say. Svetlana Zhurova, a former Olympic speedskater who is now a deputy in Russian parliament’s lower house, said RUSADA’s board would meet on Dec. 19 and decide whether to accept the latest sanctions, according to Tass.
Russian Olympic officials had been bracing themselves for Monday’s decision. Yuri Ganus, the head of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, told the Associated Press last week the sanctions “were to be expected, and they’re justified.”
Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, has said the Olympic governing body must abide by WADA’s decision . The IOC recently called Russia’s actions “an attack on the credibility of sport itself and is an insult to the sporting movement worldwide.” The organization — and Bach specifically — has been steadfast in its support of including Russian athletes “where they are able to demonstrate that they are not implicated in any way by the noncompliance.”
Not everyone agrees. On Sunday, nine of the 17 of the athletes on WADA’s athlete committee sent a letter to the executive board, urging for a complete ban on Russia from the Olympics. “We maintain that the fraud, manipulation and deception revealed to date will only be encouraged and perpetuated with a lesser response,” they wrote.
Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, also has argued that WADA needed to take a tougher approach and bar all Russian athletes, contending that Russia’s Olympic and anti-doping officials have not heeded previous warnings.
“Only such a resolute response has a chance of getting Russia’s attention, changing behavior, and protecting today’s clean athletes who will compete in Tokyo, as well as future generations of athletes in Russia who deserve better than a cynical, weak response to the world’s repeated calls for Russia to clean up its act,” Tygart said.
But world anti-doping officials have been hesitant to embrace any measures that might unwittingly ensnare innocent athletes. Russian athletes who hope to compete in Tokyo and other major events will have to prove that they have no history of doping and their test results have never been tampered with by Russia’s anti-doping officials.
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Instead of the Olympics, the Russians will get an all expenses paid trip to Mar-a-Lago for a cheeseburger eating contest.
They might like eating lots of cheeseburgers
I don’t get their intransigence. Why keep at it if you’re just going be banned from competing? What’s the point? They’ve been doing this crap for literally decades.
Because they have been getting away with it for literally decades. They will learn from their mistakes, adjust the process, and start doping again as soon as they can.
Ten to one their scientists are developing drugs that defy testing.
Because that's what they do. Russians can't win at anything unless they cheat
Well, this is devastating for liberals. Who will they root for, then?
It doesn't appear to be the liberals who put Russia above their own country. That would be Trump and his supporters.
Is trmp a liberal again?
How so? What is your proof?
40% of Republicans view Putin's Russia as a friend and ally.
Trump will be anything that benefits him.
Everything you cited is a year and a half old, all published around the same time. One of things you DID NOT include was in the gallup poll, 25 percent of Democrats think Russia is an ally. Are these people as dumb as what you are trying to imply the 40 percent of Republicans are?
Of course Trump is trying to better relations with Russia. At least he is not going to coddle to them, allow them to take forceful control of another country, or give blankets, instead of lethal weapons, to yet another country that is involved in a hot war with them.
I thought MORE "Sanctions" on an enemy, was a good thing ?
Maybe Trump shoulda sold them something instead ?
I don't know. From what we hear from liberals is dropping a pallet of cash on a tarmac in the middle of the night is the best way to make friends. That's always worked so well. s/
That's right, He gave Crimea back to the Ukraine didn't he ?
Huh?