Olympia 2018: IOC excludes Russian Olympic Committee – start under neutral flag

The International Olympic Committee has informed Russia about the doping scandal of the Winter Games in Pyeongchang (9. till 25. February), but wants to give the Russian athletes a start as “neutral athletes” under certain conditions. This was decided by the IOC at an executive meeting in Lausanne on Tuesday.

“It was an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympic movement and sport,”said IOC President Thomas Bach. That is why the IOC Executive Committee has proposed balanced sanctions for systematic manipulation,”this is to be a line under the damaging episode and serve as a catalyst for a more effective anti-doping fight led by WADA,”continued Bach.

According to the IOC, the “systematic manipulation of anti-doping rules and the anti-doping system in Russia” has been confirmed. As a consequence, the former Sports Minister and current Vice Premier Witali Mutko was also excluded from the Olympic Games for life in all functions.

It is doubtful, however, whether Russian athletes will compete without a flag and anthem. In the run-up to the decision, calls for a boycott had already been heard in Russia for this case.

Russia had installed an institutional doping system between 2011 and 2015. According to the reports of the WADA special investigator Richard McLaren, about 1000 athletes were involved. The scandal was triggered in May 2016 by the whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory.