RUSSIA HAVE BEEN banned from the 2018 Winter Olympics over state-sponsored doping but the International Olympic Committee said Russian competitors would be able to compete โunder strict conditions.โ
The IOC announced the decision after examining evidence of state-sponsored doping over several years that reached a high-point at the Winter Olympics hosted in Sochi, Russia, in 2014.
Nations have in the past been barred from taking part in the Olympics, notably South Africa during the apartheid years, but none has ever been handed a blanket ban over doping.
Russian athletes, however, would be able to take part in the Games, the IOC said, as independent competitors โunder the Olympic flag.โ
IOC president Thomas Bach said: โThis was an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympic Games and the sport.
โThe IOC Executive Board, after following due process, has issued proportional sanctions for this systemic manipulation while protecting the clean athletes.
โI am feeling very sorry for all the clean athletes from all NOCs who suffered from this manipulation.โ
The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) was suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in November 2015 following accusations of state-sponsored doping.
Russian track and field athletes were denied the opportunity to represent their country at Rio 2016 by the IAAF due to the scandal.
The IOC, however, opted against a blanket ban, instead deferring the decision to the bodies governing each sport.
The IOC stated its decision to impose a suspension on the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) was down to lab manipulation it says โtargeted the Olympic Games directlyโ and was based upon 17 months of extensive work by the Schmid Commission, which โgathered evidence and information and held hearings with all the main actors.โ
A report by professor Richard McLaren last December claimed that more than 1,000 Russian athletes across 30 sports were involved in, or benefited from, state-sponsored doping over four years from 2011.
WADA granted Russia permission to conduct supervised drug testing in June, but has since decided that not enough progress had been made to meet compliance with its code.
The IAAF subsequently announced athletes from the nation remain banned from international athletics competition having failed to meet the criteria for reinstatement.
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Very hard on all the athletics who came fourth in past Olympics and missed out on a medalโฆ.Knowing that one of the medal winners was Russianโฆ.
@John003: Itโs perverse to continue to celebrate the achievements of the best, brightest, fastest, strongest when history teaches us that these winning athletes are doped to the gills. Athletics is all about doping. If youโre feeling sorry for these fabled โcleanโ athletes then the penny hasnโt dropped for you.
@Sean: Thatโs correct, banning any one group is total hypocrisy, Doping in sport is all pervasive and they know it.
@Clever Jake: Codswallop yourself, of course you brought politics and Putin into it . This is about politics of course, the montrous Putin who wont surrender the sovereignty of his country to the hedgemoney of Washington.
@John003: Agreed, any doped up athlete beaten into fourth place by other doped up athletes deserves a medal.
If you want to think youโre hip by using words like hegemony, at least learn how to spell them.
Donโt think Iโve ever read a positive article about Russia from the western msm. Wonder is there anything good about the country.
@Bairรฉid Rรญsteard: How is this a case of Western media spin?
The IOC have banned Russian athletes from competing for Russia. We know they carried out state-sponsored doping. Iโm struggling to find how your comment is relevant โ this article is just reporting facts.
@Malachi: never said it was media spin. Just thinking out loud really.
@Bairรฉid Rรญsteard: You havenโt watched Rocky 4 then.
@Bairรฉid Rรญsteard: yeah was there twice over the past few years nice place to visit and great people and surprisingly they donโt all hate the โwestโ. just stupid americans mostly but sure who doesnโt. lol
@Bairรฉid Rรญsteard: a lot of their athletes are very positive
@Honeybadger197: Rocky looked like he was doped.
@Bairรฉid Rรญsteard: Russian troll outed.
@Bairรฉid Rรญsteard: Check out the documentary โIcarusโ on Netflix. The level that the Russian government went to to assist doping for the Sochi olympics defies belief.
@David Cullen: โStupid Americansโ and the Russians are โgreat peopleโ!!! LOL! Oh youโre SO โright-onโ. SO ultra-cool! Stupid di@k.
@David Cullen: Iโve met too many Russians in Vietnam & Thailand and they are anything but โgreat peopleโ.Drunken,arrogant,ignorant & rude are words that spring to mind.BTW- why do idiots like you think itโs โcoolโ to hate America? Have you a village idiot mentality? I donโt believe youโve ever been outside your parish let alone bloody Russia.
@Kieran Conroy: Go to your safe space, youโre making a fool out of yourself.
@Fake Avast: Yep.And Vietnam,Indonesia,Malaysia,Hong Kong,the list goes on and on.Only one parochial culchie round here & it ainโt me! Now off to bed with ya-cows to be milked in the morning.
@Justin Barrett: My โsafe spaceโis the whole planet.Thatโs why I travel it.
@Fake Avast: Why do you live in Ireland? You are not Irish.If you donโt like it,leave.Bye!
Whenโs the USA, UK and China getting their bans?
We all know theyโre at it too. Canโt just be Russia
@Cian Rynne: Well China at leastโฆ.. Remember the Chinese woman on the Turtle soup who took the gold from Sonia OโSullivanโฆ
@Cian Rynne: you should give your evidence to wada then
@johnp: and what will wada do with it? Use it to wrap their chips or shove it down a hole in the floorboards?
@Cian Rynne: With Russia itโs state sponsored. Thereโs a difference.
@Cian Rynne:
You dont seem to want to follow facts at all and just straight for the โwwhhatt about them!!โ
@Stephen Coveney: plenty of British and American coaches and athletes implicated in doping.
Just that the media has a very strong anti Russian bias, easier to hear about the big bad Russians than it is to hear about nations closer to home
@Cian Rynne: Please, say its not so. I want them all to be sqeaky clean like my heroโs Alberto Salazar and Mo Farah. Well ok, but the Russians spiked their drinks youโ ll find.
hopefully the innocent athletes still get their chance to shine.
@gjpb: if it looks like a Russian bot, talks like a Russian bot and shites on like a russian botโฆ.. It must be a russian bot!!
@Snotser Galligan: Kinda fitting that your profile pic is a Muppet. Whatโs the problem with entirely innocent athletes being allowed their chance to shine ?
@Snotser Galligan: what are you slobbering about?
you donโt think innocent athletes should be allowed compete?
@gjpb:
They can. Just dont use the russian doping agency as proof that they are clean. Lets just hope the russian authorities grow up a bit and allow their countrymen to get tested somewhere else and compete.
@Stephen Coveney: yip, thatโs what happened with this years world athletics championships.
Good , cheating bsatards
Something is a bit fishy that the United Kingdom Olympic team only 3-6% had asthma now 60-70% do!
Part of me feels sorry for the clean athletes that dreamt of representing their country at an Olympic games
@Declan burke: itโs naive to believe that clean athletes exist if indeed they ever did. Where have you been the last twenty years?
@Sean:
No its not. The vast vast majority of people who have competed at the olympics have been clean. you just seem to want to muddy the waters with unfounded accusations
@Stephen Coveney: ha ha hilarious. The vast majority that you canโt name were clean perhaps. If you can remember their names then they probably won something and were pretty much guaranteed to be doped. Do you know I heard that in the LA Olympics they introduced new equipment that could detect minute quantities of drugs for the first time. They had so many positive tests they were in a serious dilemma so eventually they just shelved all the results as to do otherwise would have shut the Olympics down. Now thatโs what you call Integrity folks.
Iโm sure their footballers are cleanโฆ.after all the World Cup is being held in Russiaโฆโฆโฆ.!
@Paul Furey: fifa sitting on over 20 positive tests.
@KEV: That sounds messyโฆโฆ..
@Paul Furey: the French deliberately hand balled to get to the last tournament ahead of the Irish and FIFA looked the other way. What is the difference between the French doing that and the Russians taking drugs? None as far as I can see.
@Sean:
Thats cause your an idiot. One man in one moment of a match instinctively using his hand to control the ball is no way comparable to an operation run by a government in which they systematically drug their own athletes so that they can feel a bit more important cause they won a few more medals.
@Stephen Coveney: State sponsored cheating is still cheating. It just has the words State sponsored before it. The point I was making was that if cheating is so reprehensible to the sporting principles of fair play then the Henry handball should be treated similarly. Henry was decent enough to admit it after the match. He said โI will be honest, it was a handball. I played it. The ref allowed it. You should ask himโ.
@Stephen Coveney: also Iโm not an idiot and reject that accusation in its entirety. Idiots put pencils in their nose and say wibble and I clearly do not fall into this category.
The IOC is hopelessly corrupt. The decision to ban Russia is entirely political, Russia is no worse a drug cheating nation than the Chinese or the USA. The doping agencies are pawns in the game. On the same day it forced Pat Hickey back onto the Irish Olympic Committee today as well. Says it all.
@Garry Coll: They were caught doing it on the state level by a whistleblower. Iโm sure China is better at hiding it. I donโt think the US govt is involved in doping itโs athletes The athletes do a good enough job themselves.
@Garry Coll: Are you serious? The Russians were caught red handed doctoring thousands of samples. Yes everybody dopes. But not everybody has a secret service operation to swap out piss samples. The only shocker here is that the Russians were allowed to compete at Rio.
@Garry Coll:
nice that you brought up Pat Hickey since he said himself that Putin was trying to intervene to get him released in Brazil. Peas in a Pod. Rest of your post in just usual russian โweโre not to blame, everyone else isโ
@Jason Power: They totally bribed the IOC to take part in Rio, as is there modus operandi. Should have received the death penalty instead of the slap on the wrist they got. Russian โathletesโ were justifiably booed by the crowds in Rio.
Just wait for Trump to tweet that the USA should not compete either, โFake Olympicsโ the orange snowflake will moan.
@Jack OโConnell: Only a trump fan would believe he has nothing to do with Russia while calling calling other people names.
A nation of computer hackers run by a crook and his oil baron cronies. Cheating is in their blood. No innovation in the arts or sciences either. If it wasnโt for oil, they wouldnโt produce anything the world wants. And donโt get me started on their behaviour on European beaches. They have the manners of farm animals.
@โฑIโทโ โท เฉฉโญ: Disgraceful
@โฑIโทโ โท เฉฉโญ: and what about Russia then?!
Watch Icarus on Netflix, itโs fairly shocking. Sneaky Russians
Yeah Putin is my hero..anonymous snowflake wimp he is not.
โSneaky F**cking Russian.โ