The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has recommended that Russian athletes in all sports be denied entry to the 2016 Rio Olympics in the wake of the McLaren Report’s assertions of a massive state-sponsored doping program.
The McLaren report dropped earlier today, alleging – among other things – that Moscow’s anti-doping lab worked to cover up positive tests of Russian athletes, that Russia’s Ministry of Sport was in control of the program, that the FSB (Russian federal security service) and CSP (Center of Sports Preparation in Russia) actively participated in the process, and that the program affected multiple sports in both summer and winter Olympic lineups.
Russia’s athletics program (which governs track & field events) is already banned from Rio, with individual athletes able to compete under a neutral banner if they can prove they are clean of banned substances.
WADA released a statement with its recommendations today, starting the list with the recommendation to bar Russian athletes in all sports from the Rio Games. The full statement is here.
WADA makes sure to note that it does not have authority to ban Russian athletes itself. Its recommendation calls on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to deny the entries of any athletes under the Russian Olympic Committee or Russian Paralympic Committee.
Yesterday, before the McLaren Report had been published, the United States Anti-Doping Agency and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports called for a ban of all Russian athletes.
FINA (the international governing body for swimming) criticized the calls for a ban on the grounds that the calls came before the McLaren Report, which was supposed to be confidential at that point. FINA also expressed concern that WADA was trying to raise support for an all-sport ban on Russia.
FINA hasn’t publicly commented on the McLaren report since its publication.
What a mess!
The politics that is, not that WADA made this very strong recommendation.
Once again history repeats itself and the truth prevails, thankfully. What corrupt countries don’t ever realize is that you can cheat you way to the top of the medal tally ie Russia at the Sochi Winter Olympics or the GDR in the eighties but when you get caught out the reputation damage is enormous and permanent and in this case the shame of potentially of the whole country being banned from the Rio Olympics will be a indelible stain on the already tarnished history of the country.
Putin will puff out his chest and cry biased political interference but the majority of the sports loving people world-wide will know that past and future performances of Russian Athletes have and deserve… Read more »
While I agree with this, imagine how nasty things could get in 2 years with Russia hosting the World Cup….
Hmmmm. FINA might want to reconsider its position on Efi-Meldo-mova. .
How do you embed image? or video?
I think they should also deny entry to russian atheletes with prior doping violation regardless of whether or not they can prove they are clean. Just my 2 cents
I’ve known there is widespread doping in Russia since my first viewing of Rocky IV…
“Prove they’re clean?” What does that even mean? Pass a drug test like every other athlete has to? Yet another sanction with no real teeth. If a federation is involved in conduct that is so egregious that the whole federation is banned, individual members of the federation should be banned, period.
This is a very powerful move and statement by WADA. If the IOC is ambivalent to this there will be ongoing PR nightmares and consequences.