{"id":12708,"date":"2016-06-19T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-19T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/russian-track-and-field-athletes-banned-from-rio\/"},"modified":"2016-06-19T08:00:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-19T15:00:38","slug":"russian-track-and-field-athletes-banned-from-rio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/russian-track-and-field-athletes-banned-from-rio\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian track and field athletes banned from Rio"},"content":{"rendered":"

VIENNA<\/strong> \u2014 Russia\u2019s track and field athletes will be banned from competing for their country at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics after a landmark decision Friday that punished the sports powerhouse for a systematic doping system that operated \u201cfrom the top down\u201d and tainted the entire team.<\/p>\n

In an unprecedented ruling loaded with geopolitical ramifications, the IAAF upheld its ban on Russia\u2019s track and field federation, saying the country had made some progress in cleaning up but failed to meet the requirements for reinstatement and would be barred from sending its athletes to the Rio Games that begin in 50 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussian athletes could not credibly return to international competition without undermining the confidence of their competitors and the public,\u201d IAAF President Sebastian Coe said.<\/p>\n

Russia immediately condemned the decision, saying it was \u201cdeeply disappointed\u201d and that the Rio Games will be \u201cdiminished\u201d by the absence of its athletes. The Russian track federation said it was considering an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport \u2014 the sports world\u2019s highest court.<\/p>\n

The IAAF, track\u2019s world governing body, left open a \u201ctiny crack\u201d that would allow any individual Russian athletes who have been untainted by doping and have been subjected to effective testing outside Russia to apply to compete in the games.<\/p>\n

However, the IAAF said those athletes would be few and would be eligible to compete only as \u201cindividuals\u201d \u2014 and not under the Russian flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crack in the door is quite narrow and there won\u2019t be many who manage to get through that crack in the door,\u201d said Rune Andersen, the Norwegian anti-doping expert who headed the IAAF task force that determined that Russia\u2019s reforms were not enough.<\/p>\n

The IAAF said it was necessary to ban the entire track and field team because there was no way to verify which athletes could be considered clean.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system in Russia has been tainted by doping from the top level down,\u201d Andersen said. \u201cWe cannot trust that what people might call clean athletes are really clean. If you have one or two or five with negative tests, it does not mean the athletes are clean. History has shown that is not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coe dismissed suggestions that there were any political motivations behind the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were members from all four corners of the world and the decision was unanimous,\u201d he said. \u201cPolitics did not play a part today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruling came four days before a sports summit called by the IOC to address \u201cthe difficult decision between collective responsibility and individual justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IOC said it had \u201ctaken note\u201d of the IAAF ruling and that its executive board will meet by teleconference Saturday to \u201cdiscuss the appropriate next steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has been speculation the IOC could overrule the IAAF or impose a compromise that would allow \u201cclean\u201d Russian athletes to compete. However, Coe made clear that the IAAF runs the sport and determines which athletes are eligible to participate, not the IOC.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have a message for the IOC,\u201d said Coe, who will attend Tuesday\u2019s meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. \u201cEligibility is a matter for the IAAF.\u201d<\/p>\n

The suspension of the Russian federation, known as RusAF, was imposed in November following a report by a World Anti-Doping Agency commission that alleged state-sponsored cheating, corruption and cover-ups. On Wednesday, WADA issued a new report citing continuing obstruction and violations of drug-testing in Russia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe deep-seated culture of tolerance, or worse, for doping that led Russia being suspended appears not to have changed materially to date,\u201d the IAAF said.<\/p>\n

Coe said the unanimous decision by the 25 members of the IAAF council to maintain the ban sends \u201ca very clear signal to athletes and the public about our intention to reform our sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision was hailed by many sports officials and athletes\u2019 groups outside Russia who have been pushing the IAAF to take a hard line to restore some credibility to the much-maligned global anti-doping system.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives a measure of hope to clean athletes that there are consequences not only for athletes who dope, but for countries which do not engage seriously in the fight against doping,\u201d U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun said. \u201cThat is a much-needed message.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added U.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief executive Travis Tygart: \u201cObviously, banning Russian track and field from the Olympics is the right outcome. The world\u2019s clean athletes came together and demanded that their voices were heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

In expressing its disappointment, Russia\u2019s Sports Ministry appealed to IOC members to \u201cconsider the impact that our athletes\u2019 exclusion will have on the dreams and the people of Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cClean athletes\u2019 dreams are being destroyed because of the reprehensible behavior of other athletes and officials,\u201d the ministry said. \u201cThey have sacrificed years of their lives striving to compete at the Olympics and now that sacrifice looks likely to be wasted.\u201d<\/p>\n

It added that the Olympics \u201care supposed to be a source of unity, and we hope that they remain as a way of bringing people together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IAAF rejected a last-minute plea by Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, who claimed the country had cleaned up its anti-doping system and met all the requirements for readmission.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe firmly believe that clean athletes should not be punished for the actions of others,\u201d he said in an open letter to Coe.<\/p>\n

Before the ruling was announced, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he rejected the idea of \u201ccollective responsibility\u201d in doping cases and said the Russian state had never supported doping by any athletes.<\/p>\n

Two-time Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva was among the Russian athletes hoping to compete in Rio. She has threatened to go to court on human rights grounds if she is excluded from the games. Other cases could end up in CAS, the Swiss-based appeals court.<\/p>\n

The IAAF did change its rules to make way for \u201cany individual athletes who can clearly and convincingly show that they are not tainted\u201d by doping and who have been outside Russia and subject to effective drug-testing systems.<\/p>\n

Those individuals can apply to a special IAAF committee for permission to compete as a \u201cneutral athlete,\u201d not for Russia.<\/p>\n

The IAAF also recommended that Russian whistleblower Yulia Stepanova be allowed to compete at the Olympics as an independent athlete. The 800-meter runner who served a doping ban gave information along with her husband that led to a broad investigation of doping inside Russia.<\/p>\n

The IAAF task force recommended she be allowed to because of the \u201cextraordinary contribution\u201d she made to the anti-doping effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VIENNA \u2014 Russia\u2019s track and field athletes will be banned from competing for their country at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics after a landmark decision Friday that punished the sports<\/a> powerhouse for a systematic doping system that operated \u201cfrom the top down\u201d and tainted the entire team. In an unprecedented ruling loaded with geopolitical ramifications, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12708"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}