Leaders call for Russian Olympics ban

The Institute of National Anti-Doping Organisations will recommend to WADA that Russian athletes are banned from next year's Rio Olympics.

Leaders of the world anti-doping movement have called for Russian track athletes to be banned from next year's Olympics, saying the nine-month window between now and the Games isn't enough to ensure the program and its athletes are clean.

The Institute of National Anti-Doping Organisations (iNADO) will send its declaration to the World Anti-Doping Agency, which holds its annual meetings this week in Colorado Springs.

The iNADO leaders are responding to last week's report by an independent commission that detailed corruption and rule-breaking inside the Russian track team and the country's anti-doping system.

The sport's governing body, IAAF, has provisionally suspended the track team.

While the Russian and International Olympic Committees negotiate the country's return, the iNADO leaders, who represented 16 countries, said on Monday the Russian track team had not demonstrated it could send a clean team to the Olympics.

"We're not convinced there's enough time between now and then for them to clean up their act," David Kenworthy, the chair of iNADO and the UK Anti-Doping in Britain, told The Associated Press.

As part of its declaration, iNADO also wants WADA to devote at least as much money to compliance as it does to research - something that falls in line with what the independent-commission report recommended.

The WADA budget comes in at around $US26 million ($A36 million) a year, funded half by the International Olympic Committee and half by governments around the world.

Currently, WADA gets the bulk of its information about the efficiency of a country's anti-doping program from questionnaires filled out by policymakers in the countries themselves.

"We'd like to allow WADA to have the ability to robustly examine countries, rather than rely on self-reporting," Kenworthy said.

Over the weekend, IOC president Thomas Bach and the head of the Russian Olympic Committee, Alexander Zhukov, reached agreement on a roadmap for Russia to follow to become compliant with rules of the IAAF and WADA.

No time frame was set.

Bach said all the implicated coaches, doctors and athletes would have to serve their sanctions, and a top-to-bottom reform of Russia's track and field program would have to take place.

But the iNADO leaders have no confidence that can happen before August 12, 2016 - the day track and field starts at the Rio Olympics.

"If they can achieve that by 2016, great," Kenworthy said. "But we just feel they can't, because of the damage that's been done to both their systems and to their credibility. If you've got to start from scratch, it takes years. It's not something that just takes six months."


Share

3 min read

Published

Updated

Source: AAP



Share this with family and friends


Get SBS News daily and direct to your Inbox

Sign up now for the latest news from Australia and around the world direct to your inbox.

By subscribing, you agree to SBS’s terms of service and privacy policy including receiving email updates from SBS.

Download our apps
SBS News
SBS Audio
SBS On Demand

Listen to our podcasts
An overview of the day's top stories from SBS News
Interviews and feature reports from SBS News
Your daily ten minute finance and business news wrap with SBS Finance Editor Ricardo Gonçalves.
A daily five minute news wrap for English learners and people with disability
Get the latest with our News podcasts on your favourite podcast apps.

Watch on SBS
SBS World News

SBS World News

Take a global view with Australia's most comprehensive world news service
Watch the latest news videos from Australia and across the world