Russian sports minister: Government not involved in doping

Russia’s national athletics team head coach, Yury Borzakovsky told AFP at the opening day of Russia’s athletics championship in Cheboksary.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) would like to clarify that Friday’s (17 June) IAAF decision does not affect the participation of the Russian Para athletics team at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

The IAAF task force has been sharing information with that investigation, which is led by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren, and Andersen revealed in Vienna it had already corroborated some of the claims of cheating made by the former director of Moscow’s anti-doping lab Grigory Rodchenkov.

“When the state is accused, then it’s always politics and unfortunately athletes become hostages of such political rulings and the pressure exerted on the country”, Mutko said Monday in comments to Russia’s Interfax news agency.

In May, WADA set up a new investigation under Professor Richard McLaren, a Canadian law professor and longstanding member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), into allegations of state-backed doping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Russian Federation.

The world athletics governing body IAAF unanimously voted on Friday to maintain Russia’s suspension over evidence of state-sponsored doping and mass corruption in track and field.

The Russia team is now ruled out of all events in athletics in Rio, although Russian athletes training outside the country can apply to compete as neutrals at the August 5-21 event in Brazil.

Mutko added that he expected little from Tuesday’s International Olympic Committee summit. Shlyakhtin said the athletics federation would support athletes, including pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, who have pledged to take the IAAF to court over the decision.

“No decisions will be taken” at the International Olympic Committee summit, Mutko said. “There simply aren’t the people there who could do it”.

Russian track and field athletes are set to miss out on Rio 2016, but a pending report could see the ban extended to other sports.

“We have a good relationship with the IOC – there are 10,500 athletes at an Olympic Games and a fifth of them are athletes”, Coe said.