Russian Paralympic athletes banned from Rio

The decision to exclude Russia’s entire Paralympics team, announced on Sunday (Monday NZT) by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), means that at least 250 Russian competitors are set to miss the September 7-18 Paralympics.

The committee had asked for more information from Richard McLaren, who triggered the controversy in July by issuing a report for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) alleging a wide-scale pattern of doping by Russian athletes, which had been covered up for years by the country’s security services.

“The facts really do hurt”, Craven said. “Russia has some top-quality athletes across all sports and we look forward to the day when we can welcome the Russian Paralympic Committee back as a member safe in the knowledge that it is fulfilling all its obligations in order to ensure a level playing field for all”.

Addressing Russia’s Olympic team before they traveled to Rio last week, Putin said Russian sport had fallen foul of a politically motivated plot and the principal of collective responsibility flew in the face of common sense and legality.

“Tragically, this situation is not about athletes cheating a system, but about a state-run system that is cheating the athletes”, Craven said. “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”.

“While the McLaren report was shocking and did highlight the need for a total reform of the existing anti-doping system, ANOC does not believe there is sufficient evidence to support a complete ban of Russian athletes”, ANOC added in the statement.

The move was punishment for the country running a doping operation that polluted sports by prioritizing “medals over morals”, according to the IPC. The IPC plans to retest every sample provided by a Russian Paralympic athlete during the Sochi Games.

“We will fight for our Paralympians”, Mutko, who the International Olympic Committee banned from attending the Olympics, told the Tass news agency.

He told Russian news agencies the decision had a whiff of second-grade politics about it and questioned why the IPC, which he said had previously lavished praise on Russia’s Paralympians, had changed its mind so suddenly.

“The Paralympic Games without Russians are games in a cut-down form”, Terentyev told Tass.

“This is about doing justice to clean athletes all over the world”.

“It shows a blatant disregard for the health and well-being of athletes and, quite simply, has no place in Paralympic sport”, Craven said. “As a result, any of the athletes of Russian Federation will not be able to take part in Paralympic”.

The RPC will be given 21 days to appeal the IPC’s decision, or they will be suspended indefinitely from all rights and privileges of IPC membership.

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