Olympics 2018: Anti-doping organizations call for exclusion of Russia

The leading national anti-doping organizations are demanding the exclusion of Russia from the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang.

After their two-day meeting in Denver/Colorado, the representatives of the 17 NADOs, including the German NADA, called on the IOC not to invite the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) to participate in the forthcoming games in South Korea (9th place) due to proven manipulation and corruption at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi.till 25.February).

“It’s time for action, lip service must stop.The sporting leaders and the organisations of a country should not be legitimised for Olympic Games if they deliberately violate the rules and deprive clean athletes.This would be particularly unfair against the background of individual athletes being punished for violating the rules,”said a statement by NADOs and iNADO, the association of 68 national anti-doping agencies.

The NADOs insisted:”The IOC must stop putting things off and take immediate and meaningful action.The failure to investigate targeted doping in individual Russian athletes is a clear and present threat to clean athletes worldwide and to the 2018 Winter Games.”

The anti-doping agencies expressed “serious doubts that the 2018 games will be clean given the incomplete investigation of the massive evidence and evidence of doping offences by Russian athletes at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi and the inadequate testing by Russian athletes in the past four years.

The former head of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, Gregori Rodchenkov, admitted in May 2016 that there had been a state-supported doping system at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.Several dozens of Russian athletes are said to have been doped.The investigations of the Canadian WADA special investigator Richard McLaren also placed a heavy burden on the Russians with regard to their Olympic home games.More than 1000 Russian athletes are said to have benefited from the illegal activities.

nearby

Two IOC commissions are currently dealing with the scandals.The IOC wants to take measures in autumn, before the start of the winter sports season and in good time before the Winter Games.

Recently, reports had caused a sensation that the IOC had already decided to impose a heavy fine as the only measure against Russia.The umbrella organisation, which had refrained from completely banning Russian athletes from the Games in Rio de Janeiro, described this as “pure speculation”.