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MARCH: The last time Russia participated in an Olympic inauguration under its own flag was in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Photo: Matt Slocum / TT NEWS AGENCY
Russia appealed and has halved the doping penalty from four to two years. The nation is banned from all Olympics and World Cups for the next two years. However, Russian athletes can participate under a neutral flag.
That is the verdict of the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) in Lausanne on Thursday. The decision also means that Russia cannot host world championships during this period.
Therefore, Russian athletes cannot participate in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics or the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, unless they know the guarantees that they are free from doping. In that case, they can compete under the neutral flag. This was the case most recently during the 2018 Winter Olympics.
The head of the US anti-doping agency USADA, Travis T. Tygart, is furious at the verdict:
– There is no consolation in this weak and diluted judgment. The fact that Russia once again escapes a crime-related consequence, much less an actual exclusion, is a catastrophic setback for pure athletes, the integrity of sport and the rule of law, Tygart believes.
– WADA and the IOC have manipulated this Russian state doping from day one, Tygart continues, and realizes that he “should have seen it coming.”
– Russia declares victory today. If it’s about the ability to destroy global sport, fool the world, and fool the anti-doping system, they are right.
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WADA President Witold Banka also says that he is disappointed that TAS changed the verdict, but that they respect the verdict.
In 2015, the Russian anti-doping agency Rusada was suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The case concerned extensive violations of doping rules from 2011, mostly up to and during the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014.
WADA decided a year ago that Russia would be banned from all international sports championships for the next four years. However, the Russians appealed the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and their decision came on Thursday.
The case is based largely on the revelations of Grigory Rodchenkov, former director of the Moscow Doping Laboratory. He now lives at a secret address in the United States. Your lawyer kills the decision.
“Despite overwhelming evidence of corruption, doping and attempts to avoid a fair trial, including attempts to frame Rodchenkov using fabricated evidence, CAS has once again proven to be reluctant and incapable of standing up to Russia’s systematic crime “. Rodchenkov’s attorney, Jim Walden.
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It was in 2016 that the McLaren report revealed how Russian practitioners participated in a state-sponsored doping program. During the home Olympics, in Sochi 2014, among other things, positive doping tests were replaced by negative tests, through “mouse holes” in a laboratory wall.
Despite this, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided not to exclude Russia from the 2016 Olympics. Only during the 2018 Winter Olympics, after great pressure, the nation was banned. However, the Russian practitioners were allowed to participate under a neutral flag in South Korea.
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In 2018, Rusada regained access to WADA, but later that year, WADA began investigating material from the doping laboratory in Moscow. More than 2,000 samples were analyzed and WADA claimed that Russia manipulated several of them.
This led to the organization throwing Rusada back to the gate in 2019. As a result, Russia was excluded from major championships for the next four years. At the same time, Russia rejected a comprehensive doping system and therefore chose to appeal the exclusion to CAS. A secret hearing was held there from November 2 to 5, 2020. On Thursday, the decision was made in the case
