Rio Paralympics 2016: Russian Federation suspended

RIO DE JANEIRO Russia was barred from taking part in next month’s Rio Paralympics on Sunday, with organizers blasting a “medals over morals mentality” as they announced the blanket ban over state-backed doping that Olympics bosses avoided.

A report authored by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren and published last month revealed that a scheme was operating at the Sochi Olympic Games in 2014 where dirty urine samples were replaced with clean ones through a “mouse hole” in the wall of a laboratory.

He added: “The doping culture that is polluting Russian sport stems from the Russian government and has now been uncovered in not one, but two independent reports commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency”.

Russian Federation finished second in the medal standings at the 2012 London Paralympics and had 267 athlete slots for Rio in 18 sports which will only now be filled if an appeal is successful.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had asked the International Olympic Committee to ban Russia after the release of the Canadian Lawyer Richard McLarens report, but each individual sporting federation was given the power to decide if Russian athletes could compete.

World Archery received written confirmation from the IPC on 26 July that no archery athletes were implicated in the McLaren Report, making the blanket ban excluding of clean athletes, inappropriate and unfair.

This is not about athletes cheating the system but the state-run system that is cheating athletes.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams said earlier Sunday that he would not be surprised if the IPC took a different decision to the IOC as there is a distinction between the winter and summer Games, in terms of the global federations involved.

Russian Federation now has 21 days to appeal the IPC decision.

In addition, the release of the International Paralympic Committee reports that the Russian athletes won’t be able to perform at the Paralympics in Brazil individually.

In an IPC statement on the decision, Craven said: “This decision has placed a huge burden upon all our shoulders, but it’s a decision we’ve had to take in the best interests of the Paralympic Movement”.

What can not be forgotten in all the politicking is that it is the Russian athletes who ultimately are collectively punished, something Bach has insisted on a number of occasions he is very wary of.

Russian Federation said within minutes of the announcement that it would be appealing against the ban at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland, sport’s highest court.

“Our main focus remains on our own preparation for the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games and will continue as we have been doing in our work with athletes and staff”.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the ruling violated the human rights of Russia’s Paralympians.

In contrast to the Paralympic Committee’s move, the IOC laid out new criteria that Russian athletes must meet to participate in the Olympics, which opened on Saturday (NZ Time).

“The McLaren report marked one of the darkest days in the history of all sport”.

“There are clearly very, very different circumstances from them to us”, International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams said.

US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) chief executive Travis Tygart said the IPC’s decision was “inspiring”.