Russia banned from 2018 Winter Olympics over doping

Agencies
December 6, 2017

Russia was banned on Tuesday from the 2018 Winter Games by the International Olympic Committee over its state-orchestrated doping programme, but clean Russian athletes will be allowed to compete under an Olympic flag.

The sanction was the toughest ever levelled by the IOC for drug cheating and came just 65 days ahead of the Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

In announcing the decision, IOC president Thomas Bach accused Russia of "perpetrating an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympic Games and sport".

An explosive report by the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) and two subsequent IOC investigations have confirmed that Russian athletes took part in an elaborate drug cheating programme which peaked during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Mounting evidence has indicated that the scheme involved senior government officials, including from the sports ministry, with help from secret state agents.

The IOC also banned Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko — who was sports minister during the Sochi Games — for life.

Mutko is currently the head of the organising committee for the 2018 World Cup, which Russia is hosting.

Attention will quickly turn to see if football's world governing body FIFA allows the scandal-tainted ally of President Vladimir Putin to retain his senior World Cup role.

In a statement, FIFA said it had "taken note" of the IOC decision but it had "no impact on the preparations" for Russia 2018.

Russia 'apologised'

The IOC also suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and its chief Alexander Zhukov.

Zhukov said he "apologised" to the IOC on Tuesday for the "anti-doping violations" committed in his country in recent years.

The IOC had the option of hitting Russia with a blanket ban, the so-called nuclear option that was applied to apartheid-era South Africa from 1964 to 1988.

The IOC's decision to choose a more moderate path offers some Russian athletes a route to competing in the Games — although that will be by invitation only and dependent on a stringent testing programme.

"The IOC, at its absolute discretion, will ultimately determine the athletes to be invited from the list," the IOC said in a statement.

No Russian athlete with a previous doping violation will be allowed to compete and no official who had a leadership role at Sochi 2014 will be invited to Pyeongchang.

Those athletes who do go to the Games will participate under the name "Olympic Athlete from Russia" and the country's flag will not fly at any 2018 ceremony, the IOC also said.

The Games' South Korean organisers said they would welcome the Russian athletes to compete under a neutral flag.

"We accept and respect the decisions of the IOC Executive Board that Russia may compete under a neutral flag," the Pyeongchang organising committee said in a statement on Wednesday.

"We will work with the IOC and all other relevant stakeholders accordingly to ensure that all the athletes and officials attending the Games as part of this team are given the best experience possible."

'Principled decision'

The US Olympic Committee praised the IOC's "strong and principled decision.

"There were no perfect options, but this decision will clearly make it less likely that this ever happens again," it said.

For Grigory Rodchenkov, the former Russian laboratory chief and whistleblower who lifted the lid on the cheating scheme, the IOC's action was a needed step to clean up the Olympic movement.

"It was the most elaborate and sophisticated doping system in the history of sports. If it did not carry the most significant sanction it would simply have emboldened Russia and other countries who don't respect the rules", Rodchenkov's lawyer, Jim Walden, told reporters on a conference call.

Boycott?

Russian officials have previously met doping accusations with defiance.

Mutko has said the allegations were an attempt "to create an image of an axis of evil" against his country while Putin has warned that a Russia ban would cause "serious harm to the Olympic movement".

He said forcing Russian athletes to compete under a neutral flag would amount to a national "humiliation".

That has fuelled speculation that Moscow would instruct its athletes to boycott the compromise solution decided by the IOC.

"An Olympic boycott has never achieved anything," Bach said, insisting that given the window left open for clean athletes to compete, a boycott was unwarranted.

But the IOC expulsion sparked immediate outrage in Russia.

Deputy speaker of the Russian parliament's lower house, the State Duma, Pyotr Tolstoy has already called for a boycott.

"They are humiliating the whole of Russia through the absence of its flag and anthem," he said in televised remarks.

The president of Russia's Bobsleigh Federation, Alexander Zubkov told Russian TV that the IOC decision was a "humiliation."

"This is a punch in the stomach", he said.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
November 25,2024

Udupi: Six junior artists from the prequel of Kannada blockbuster film ‘Kantara’ were injured, when the bus they were travelling in overturned in the district, police said on Monday.

According to police, the accident occurred near Jadkal on Sunday night when the mini-bus carrying the crew of the film overturned.

“The incident happened while they were returning to Kollur after completing the shoot at Mudoor in Jadkal. The mini-bus was carrying 20 junior artistes when it met with the accident,” a police officer said.

The injured were rushed to hospitals in Jadkal and Kundapur for treatment, they said.

The Kollur police are investigating the matter.

"The news making rounds is completely false. The Kantara: Chapter 1 team began shooting at 06:00 AM today, and everything is proceeding as normal. A minor accident occurred 20 kilometres away from the shooting location, involving a local bus carrying some members of the Kantara team. However, no injuries were reported," a source close to the production said.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
November 13,2024

lebenonstrikes.jpg

Beirut: The Israeli army on Tuesday continued to launch attacks against civilians in Lebanon, targeting them in several areas without prior evacuation warnings.

However, 13 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the space of only three hours were preceded by evacuation warnings.

The attacks caused no injuries but resulted in widespread destruction of residential buildings and commercial, medical and educational centers.

The airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Bekaa region, reaching Akkar in Lebanon’s far north, erased any hope of a near-term ceasefire settlement.

The strikes were accompanied by an announcement on Israel’s Channel 14 that “the Israeli army has expanded its operations in southern Lebanon to areas it had not reached since the beginning of the ground operation.”

About 50 days have passed since Israel intensified its hostile operations in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The death toll from these confrontations and attacks has passed 3,200, with more than 14,000 wounded.

For the first time, an airstrike targeted a mountainous area between Baalchmay and Aabadiyeh on the road leading to Aley, destroying a building housing displaced people.

The mayor of Baalchmay, Adham Al-Danaf, confirmed that “the airstrike targeted a residential building in the Dhour Aabadiyeh area.”

The initial toll from the Ministry of Health showed “five people killed and two injured.”

The raids that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time in the morning, unlike nightly raids before, caused huge destruction. Those who evacuated their homes after Israeli warnings, used their phones to record the collapse of empty buildings in Sfeir, Haret Hreik, Bir Al-Abed, Mrayjeh, Laylaki and Hadath.

Israeli warplanes also targeted Tyre, where a strike on a building killed three people and injured many others, while a raid on Tefahta killed a man identified as Kifah Khalil and his family.

Attacks were widespread, with Yater and Zebqine subject to artillery shelling, a civilian being killed in Hermel, and further attacks on Bouday and an area between the towns of Srifa and Arsoun.

A raid on the town of Siddiqin killed two people and injured several others, while an attack on the Mechref farm led to one fatality and multiple injuries.

The search for those missing after an Israeli raid on the town of Ain Yaacoub in Akkar, in the northernmost part of Lebanon, continued until dawn.

During the operation, 14 bodies were retrieved, identified as those of residents displaced from the town of Arabsalim in the Iqlim Al-Tuffah area of the south, along with members of a Syrian family, a mother and three of her children. Additionally, there were 10 people in critical condition.

The targeted residence belongs to a Lebanese citizen, Hussein Hashim, who is reported to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

An airstrike on the town of Saksakiyeh in the Sidon region on Monday night resulted in yet another tragedy.

It appeared that the intended target was the Shoumer family, who just days before lost Hussein Amin Shoumer and his two sisters in a drone strike near Al-Awali River.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued additional evacuation warnings for towns in the southern region along the Litani River, which, according to estimates from the mayors, are currently 90 percent uninhabited.

In the meantime, Hezbollah announced its continued efforts to “combat the intrusions of Israeli forces and to strike military installations and towns in the north.”

Hezbollah said in a statement that it confronted “an Israeli Hermes 450 drone in the airspace of Nabatieh and forced it to leave Lebanese airspace.”

The party also announced that it targeted “Kfar Blum settlement with a rocket salvo.”

On the Israeli side, air raid sirens sounded in areas of Upper and Western Galilee and in the town of Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings.

The Israeli army confirmed that “a drone exploded in Nesher, east of Haifa, without activating the air raid sirens,” and that “a drone launched from Lebanon crashed into a school in Gesher HaZiv, north of Nahariya.”

Israel’s Channel 13 reported the Israeli military’s assessment regarding Hezbollah’s military strength, claiming that the group currently possesses approximately 100 precision missiles, thousands of artillery shells, and hundreds of rockets. Additionally, it was highlighted that “there are around 200 Lebanese towns that remain unvisited.”

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.