(ATR) If Russian athletes want to compete at the PyeongChang Paralympics, their Paralympic Committee must demonstrate a "cultural change" by September.
The International Paralympic Committee updated the world’s media today on the status of the Russian Paralympic Committee. The RPC remains suspended by the IPC since last August, after the findings of the first McLaren report violating the IPC doping code. The suspension caused the entire Russian delegation to miss the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.
IPC President Philip Craven said the "principles that drove our decision," to suspend Russia have not changed. He added that the taskforce in charge of working with the RPC to lift its suspension has made progress.
Craven said the IPC Governing Board is "generally pleased" with the progress, but if substantial work is not done by its next meeting, Russia will not participate in PyeongChang.
"By then, it will be very difficult for the RPC to have its suspension lifted in time to enter its athletes into the Paralympic Winter Games," Craven said today. "Although we are pleased with the progress to date, a number of key criteria still need to be met. At the moment there are a lot of good plans with timelines on paper, but we now need to see plans in action and delivering concrete results."
To receive a full reinstatement by the IPC doping tests on para-athletes must resume, Craven says. Also, the RPC must demonstrate the culture surrounding anti-doping tests in the country has changed. On top of a list of criteria needed, Russia "has to restore confidence in the wider sporting world" to be reinstated Craven says.
Last week the World Anti-Doping Agency Foundation Board met in Montreal and received an update on the reinstatement of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). At the board meeting the possibility of conducting anti-doping tests by June was raised, according to Craven.
Even with progress being made, the IPC made one criteria clear: Russia must ensure the findings from the McLaren report never happen again.
"The evidence is quite clear: the problems identified were far beyond individual athlete violations and a doping system that was not strong enough to catch those athletes," Andy Parkinson, the Independent Chair of the IPC’s Taskforce, said. "Instead, the system itself and the institutions that support this system were operating with the objective of circumventing the very rules the system was responsible to uphold.
"Unless and until these problems are fully addressed, the Taskforce is of the view that there can be no meaningful change in culture, and it would be almost impossible for Russian Para athletes to return to IPC-sanctioned competitions without jeopardizing the integrity of those competitions."
Written by Aaron Bauer
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