Russian Track And Field Team Banned From Rio Olympics

The IIAF, the governing body of international track and field, has voted to ban the Russian track and field athletics team from the Rio Olympics. The final decision now moves to the International Olympic Committee which has historically deferred to the decision of an individual sport’s governing body. The reason for this ban is not just because Russian athletes have admitted or been caught doping.  The real reason is the brazen complicity of not only sports federations within Russia but also the Russian government. You can be pretty sure that lots of athletes from countries around the world are doping. And, some countries’ sports federations probably cover test results up for some of their top athletes. But state-sponsored doping really requires some serious punitive action by the international sports’ governing bodies. At the Olympic Games in Sochi, apparently, the Russians secretly penetrated the IOC testing laboratory and would replace tainted Russian athletes’ samples with clean ones on a daily basis. And the latest report earlier this week indicated that independent drug testers from the UK that had been sent to Russia to test their athletes had been threatened by members of Russia’s Federal Security Service.  It will be interesting to see how many of the Russian athletes appeal the expected IOC decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.

On the other hand, getting banned from Rio is maybe not the worst thing that could happen. The list of potential problems with the Rio games is quite frightening.  Besides Zika, you have political upheaval, serious crime, and a collapsing economy in Brazil.  Infrastructure projects crucial to the games have still not been completed and the quality of the work that has been completed is suspect. The waters at some of the swimming and boating are heavily polluted and drug-resistant bacteria has been found at Rio’s most famous beaches. Many athletes from countries around the world have already chosen not to go and fully one-third of the available tickets for the Games have not been sold. So the Russian track and field team will just be joining a host of others in not going to Rio.