The only current reports I can find online are at The Telegraph and the Daily Mail. Not sure how reliable these are, but I also heard a brief announcement on NPR, but it has been superseded by the Paris attacks.
The Telegraph calls the ban “provisional” and the Daily Mail talks about a “route back” to the Olympics. So it’s not a completely done deal right now. The IAAF apparently voted 22 to 1 in favor of the ban, so it wasn’t a close thing. Also some recent non-Olympic championships have been stripped from the Russian winners.
I’m frankly surprised that they went this far, even if it is provisional. I remember the 1980 Olympics that the U.S. boycotted, and the 1984 Olympics that the U.S.S.R. boycotted, and it was not the same without one of the major players. I supposed the best we can hope for is that testing becomes much more rigorous and foolproof and that Russia is then allowed to participate.
That’s my understanding as well, although without the quote marks. Russia, of course, is denying everything, and they might well call the action politically motivated.
The independent doping study was saying that they could not conceive of the level of doping that they have detected in Russian athletes without Russian government complicity, at least, if not government instigation.
Weren’t a load of British runners accused of doping in a big ‘scandal’ a few months ago ?
Ergo the British government must have known about it, and been personally responsible for every dumb little squit ‘cheating’, and therefore must resign.
Or collectively each retire to a dark room with a loaded revolver to do the right thing.
Fine by me, either way.
No they weren’t. There is no evidence whatsoever of government complicity in any doping incidents with British athletes. There is a wealth of damming evidence from the independent WADA report into Russian athletic doping.
There are over 300 pages of evidence and recommendations that make a clear case for Russia being banned. They are by far and away the worst serial offenders since East Germany (and the Soviet Union) in the 70’s and 80’s.
There was no other possible outcome and they have a mountain to climb to prove compliance ahead of Rio. I think this is a great precedent to set. If a country can’t pass an audit of their anti-doping system then they shouldn’t be allowed to compete on the world stage.
Is Russia the worst country for doping? Well I’ll guess we’ll see as the net spreads wider to other suspicious countries.
Didn’t say there was. But I equally doubt old Vlad — sensibly — gives a flying fuck about anything as inconsequential as sport or the cheating thereof, and was not responsible for anything more than looking the other way, if that.
This seems merely a petty way to get back at Mother Russia for her recent transgressions in spheres of actual importance. It’s not like we’re prepared to invade the Crimea once more.
I, on the other hand, although I don’t know him any better than you do, bet that Old Vlad cares deeply about the performance of his national Olympic teams, as a matter of national prestige, which he translates as his personal prestige.
But in any case, at this point there have been no charges that the government involvement reaches as high as that. You just sort of pulled that out of your imagination, all while completely ignoring the evidence in the report. With gymnastics like that, maybe you should go out for the Olympics.
Even a cursory glance at the reign of Putin will show this to be nonsense.
Nothing on this scale happens within Putin’s Russia without his say-so. Olympics and world cups are bought for millions and constructed (via cronies and backhanders) for billions. What’s a bit of state-sponsored doping on top of that?
Conspiracy theories are always far more interesting that the dull facts as laid out in the (independent, comprehensive and damming) report.