UpdateState of emergency: IOC mulls ‘legal options’ before deciding whether to ban Russia from Rio Olympics
Probe by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren found Russia’s secret service helped “the state-dictated failsafe system” carried out by the Moscow sports ministry
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said Tuesday it will study “legal options” before deciding whether to ban Russia from the Rio Games over its state-run doping programme.
But Russia’s Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko was barred from attending the Games and the IOC ordered a disciplinary commission to look into his ministry’s role in what a report called a “state-dictated failsafe system” of drug cheating.
The IOC said it would not give backing to any international events in Russia because of the scandal but had to put back a decision on whether to bar Russia from the Rio Games which start August 5.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) has called for Russia to be banned from international competition. And IOC president Thomas Bach called the doping scandal a “shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sport and on the Olympic Games.”
The IOC said it “will explore the legal options with regard to a collective ban of all Russian athletes for the Olympic Games 2016 versus the right to individual justice.”
A probe by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren for Wada found Russia’s secret service helped Moscow’s sports ministry to rig test results and this sprawled into 30 sports over five years.
“The scale of what was happening requires Russia be banned from the Olympics and Paralympics,” said British IOC athletes commission member Adam Pengilly.