The International Olympic Committee failed to demonstrate strong leadership on a sad day for clean sport when it declined to ban Russian athletes from the Rio Olympics, anti-doping officials said on Sunday.
The International Olympic Committee failed to demonstrate strong leadership on a sad day for clean sport when it declined to ban Russian athletes from the Rio Olympics, anti-doping officials said on Sunday.
"The IOC Executive Committee has failed to confront forcefully the findings of evidence of state-sponsored doping in Russia corrupting the Russian sport system," Joseph de Pencier, CEO of iNADO, the 59-member global Institute of National Anti-Doping Organisations, said in a statement.
"It has ignored the calls of clean athletes, a multitude of athlete organisations, and of leading National Anti-Doping Organisations, to do the right thing by excluding Russia from the Rio Olympic Games," he added.
sad day for clean sport."
De Pencier and the top U.S. anti-doping official were also critical of the IOC for not allowing Russian whistleblower Yulia Stepanova to compete in Rio.
"To refuse her entry in to the Games is incomprehensible and will undoubtedly deter whistleblowers in the future from coming forward," Travis Tygart, chief executive of U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), said in a statement.
Revelations by the former drugs cheat and her husband helped expose the massive doping problem in her country. They are currently in hiding in the U.S. in fear for their lives.
