Final decision on Russian Rio athletes today
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INTERNATIONAL sport will be heading on the “road to nowhere” unless doping sanctions are applied in the same way to all countries, Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko said yesterday.
Mutko said he hoped the final size of Russia’s Olympic team would be known by today even though final appeals at the international sports tribunal are still being heard.
Russia has said it feels it has been unfairly treated following accusations of state-organized doping in a report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren for the World Anti-Doping Agency.
“The (anti-doping) system needs to be equally integrated and a unique system in all countries of the world,” Mutko told Russian media after a meeting at UNESCO in Paris.
“If we can achieve this, then the fight against doping will have some kind of final effect,” he told RIA-Novosti news agency. “If the system will work one way in a given country, and we will have to fulfil others’ requirements, then that’s a road to nowhere.”
Despite the torrent of criticism that has hit Russia, which denies any state role, the country has “the political will” to solve the crisis, the minister said.
Mutko said that “serious measures” could be taken against Russian weightlifting which has been fully banned from Rio.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport is hearing four Russian appeals against bans from Rio.
Individual federations have been told to recommend athletes and a 3-man International Olympic Committee panel will then make a final decision.
Mutko said: “I hope that today or tomorrow all the formalities regarding letting the team (compete in Rio) will be completed.”
Meanwhile, WADA leaders took a swipe back at IOC President Thomas Bach, saying there was no choice but to publish results from the independent investigation into Russian doping in the lead-up to the Olympics.
WADA President Craig Reedie said that while the timing of the report was destabilizing, “it is obvious, given the seriousness of the revelations, that they had to be published and acted upon without delay”.
On Sunday, Bach defended the IOC’s decision not to ban the entire Russian delegation.
He said the IOC was not responsible for the timing of the report, which was out on July 18.
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