Their reputations already tarnished, Russia’s track and field athletes will be banished from competing at the Rio Olympics this summer, following a ruling Friday by the International Association of Athletics Federations to uphold a suspension.
Reeling from multiple reports of widespread, systemic, state-sponsored doping, the Russian athletes were initially suspended in November. A five-member task force presented an update to the IAAF, the governing body for track and field, at a Friday afternoon meeting in Vienna.
Rather than opt for a compromise or perhaps allow athletes with no history of doping to compete at the Summer Games, council members barred the entire Russian team.
“It was not an easy decision to make today. …This is a sad day for everybody concerned,” said Sebastian Coe, the IAAF president. “Any decision made today was going to be a sad day for our sport.”
The IAAF unanimously agreed to the task force’s recommendation to uphold the suspension. Rune Anderson, who chaired the IAAF task force, explained at a news conference Friday that Russia has made progress since the initial suspension but has failed to fully address “the deep-seeded culture of tolerance.”
The IAAF did adopt a pair of rule changes Friday that provide some wiggle room for some Russian athletes to potentially compete at the Olympics but not under the Russian flag. Andersen called it a “very tiny crack in the door” and said Russian athletes who “are not tainted by the Russian system” could apply for an exemption. He said that would impact any Russian athletes who’ve been subject to reliable testing outside of the Russian system.
The organization will also give special consideration to “any athlete who has made an extraordinary contribution to the fight against doping,” which could include whistleblowers, such as sprinter Yuliya Stepanova.
“Today’s ruling is a step in the right direction,” said the U.S. Olympic Committee in a statement. “It 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. That is a much needed message.”
In a statement Friday, Vitaly Mutko, the Russian Federation’s minister of sport, expressed disappointment in the IAAF’s decision and said the Russians “have nothing to hide and feel we had met the IAAF’s conditions for re-entry.”
“Clean athletes’ dreams are being destroyed because of the reprehensible behavior of other athletes and officials,” said Mutko. “They have sacrificed years of their lives striving to compete at the Olympics and now that sacrifice looks likely to be wasted.”
Russia traditionally fields a competitive track and field team. At the London Games in 2012, Russian athletes won 18 track and field medals. Two of those have already been stripped due to doping and others could also be in jeopardy. Andersen said given the breadth of doping in Russia, it would be impossible for the IAAF to identify and grant exemptions to clean competitors.
“The systematic doping that has been ongoing in Russia, it’s difficult to pick the clean athletes,” he said. “As you know, one or two or 100 negative tests does not mean an athlete is clean. History has not shown that that is the case.”
Since the initial suspension, Russian officials have been proactively pushing for reform. They haven’t admitted to government involvement but have acknowledged doping problems on the nation’s Olympic teams and mounted an aggressive public relations campaign in response.
On Wednesday, Mutko wrote a letter to Coe, as well as IAAF council members, pleading his country’s case and outlining preventive measures that have been taken in recent months.
“Clean athletes who have dedicated years of their lives to training and who never sought to gain unfair advantage through doping should not be punished for the past actions of other individuals,” Mutko wrote. “Additionally, Russia’s athletes must not be singled out as the only ones to be punished for a problem that is widely acknowledged to go far beyond our country’s borders.”
The Russian athletes might still have options. Though the IAAF council is not expected to meet again before the Summer Games, Russia’s Sports Ministry could appeal a decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, an international body created to settle disputes of this nature.
It’s also possible that the International Olympic Committee steps in and grants some leniency. IOC President Thomas Bach enjoys a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has publicly implied that individual athletes from a banned team could still compete in Rio. The IOC is expected to take up the matter at a meeting next Tuesday in Lausanne, where an IOC spokesman has said the organization will discuss whether individual athletes from banned teams should be granted exemptions.
“We now appeal to the members of the International Olympic Committee to not only consider the impact that our athletes’ exclusion will have on their dreams and the people of Russia,” Mutko said, “but also that the Olympics themselves will be diminished by their absence. The Games are supposed to be a source of unity, and we hope that they remain as a way of bringing people together.”
Russian athletes have faced myriad charges of wrongdoing in recent months, most recently a World Anti-Doping Agency report that was released Wednesday, two days before the IAAF council meeting. The report detailed some of the measures Russian athletes have taken to avoid drug testing in the months that followed the initial IAAF suspension, including one incident in which an “athlete used a container inserted inside her body (presumably containing clean urine).”
“When she tried to use the container it leaked on to the floor and not into the collection vessel,” the report said. “The athlete threw the container into the trash which was retrieved by 1/8a doping official3/8. The athlete also tried to bribe the 1/8doping official3/8.”
The report found that many athletes failed to properly report their whereabouts for tests, and that doping control officers often faced intimidation. In addition, some athletes would report their whereabouts as military cities, where “athletes know that special permission is needed to gain access,” the report stated, noting that “athletes provide this location even if they aren’t there, to deter test planning.”
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