Russia Banned from the Olympics for 4 Years Over Doping

Russia was banished from the Olympics and other international competitions for four years on Monday over a persistent doping scandal, a decision that also threatens to turn President Vladimir Putin and top Kremlin officials into global sporting pariahs.

The World Anti-Doping Agency banned Russia’s national team after officials in Moscow were accused of fabricating evidence to cover up the use of illegal substances by the country’s athletes. Individual athletes who comply with strict conditions will be allowed to compete only under a neutral flag, while WADA ordered a ban on any Russian government officials or representatives attending events.

“Russia was afforded every opportunity to get its house in order and re-join the global anti-doping community for the good of its athletes and of the integrity of sport,” WADA President Craig Reedie said in an emailed statement after the body’s executive committee meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, approved the measures unanimously. “It chose instead to continue in its stance of deception and denial.”

The punishment will keep Russia out of next year’s Summer Olympics in Tokyo, the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and the 2022 soccer World Cup in Qatar. The ban may also prevent Russia hosting matches in the UEFA Euro 2020 soccer championships next summer, for which the national team has qualified, “unless it is legally or practically impossible to do so.” Russia will be barred from bidding to host any major championships during the four-year period, extending to include the 2032 Summer Olympics.

Russia can appeal the decision at the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport within 21 days, and is likely to do so. WADA said it fully expects to win the case, with a final ruling due by March or April.

Test Anomalies

The agency’s actions followed recommendations from its compliance review committee last month. The committee reported anomalies in a database of drug test results recovered from a Moscow laboratory in January under an agreement in September 2018 to lift an earlier almost three-year ban imposed over Russia’s state-backed doping program. Russian anti-doping chief Yuriy Ganus, who has backed the tough international response, said thousands of tests were deleted or modified and he blamed influential former athletes for the deception.

Russia’s “blatant breach” of its commitments “demanded a robust response,” Reedie said. While there were calls for a blanket ban on all Russian athletes, WADA has ensured “those who could prove their innocence should not be punished,” committee chairman Jonathan Taylor said, adding that the body “now has the names of all suspicious athletes” in the database, including those whose test results were manipulated or deleted.

The penalties are a humiliation for Putin, who personally oversaw the spending of tens of billions of dollars to host the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and the 2018 soccer World Cup as part of his efforts to restore Russia’s Soviet-era image as a sporting superpower. After placing first in the medals table at Sochi, the most expensive Winter Olympics in history costing at least $50 billion, Russia has since been stripped of 13 of its 33 medals as the scale of its doping program emerged.

Russian track and field athletes were subsequently barred from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. At the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Russian athletes were only allowed to compete under the Olympic flag.

‘Attack’ on Sport

The Kremlin denies the doping allegations, denouncing what it says is an anti-Russian campaign. But the International Olympic Committee has backed WADA, describing the test tampering as a “flagrant manipulation” that is an “attack on the credibility of sport.”

Threats, Intimidation Hamper Russia’s Return to World Sport

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called WADA’s decision “a continuation of anti-Russian hysteria that’s taken on a chronic condition” and said sports organizations should appeal against the ban, according to the state-run Tass news service. At the same time, he said “it’s impossible to deny” that Russian sports have “significant problems with doping,” Tass reported.

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