ANOC Condemns Paralympic Ban on Russia

(ATR) The reaction from Olympic powerbroker Sheikh Ahmad to the IPC’s blanket ban on Russia signals the growing divide in the Olympic Movement.

The ANOC president, a close ally of IOC president Thomas Bach, issued a statement Monday saying the umbrella body for the world’s 206 Olympic committees was "deeply concerned by the IPC’s decision which will unfairly punish clean Russian athletes".

Ahmad questioned the IPC’s decision "favoring collective responsibility over individual justice".

"We strongly believe that the IPC should have followed the lead of the IOC to give international federations the responsibility of determining whether their Russian athletes should be able to compete at the Paralympic Games," he said.

"Every Russian athlete should be given the opportunity to prove their innocence. Everyone in the Paralympic Movement has a responsibility to protect clean athletes."

IPC president Phil Craven on Sunday blasted Russia for failing the Paralympic movement.

"The anti-doping system in Russia is broken, corrupted, and entirely compromised," Craven told reporters at a press conference in Rio.

The IPC based its decision on the findings of WADA investigator Richard McLaren’s report detailing state-sponsored doping in Russia and its own drug testing.

Working with McLaren’s team, the IPC found 45 samples from 44 athletes that were flagged by Russian authorities to be manipulated by the Moscow doping lab. Of those samples, 17 were from athletes that do not compete in sports on the Paralympic program. The remaining samples were from eight Paralympic sports, five in the Summer Games and three in the Winter Games.

The IPC has so far identified 11 of the 27 remaining samples as tampered, meaning that an athlete flagged for a positive test would have escaped punishment.

The IPC then retested 19 samples from the Sochi 2014 Paralympics. DNA evidence showed that 18 of the samples were manipulated.

Despite the IPC’s reasoning for its Russian ban decision, ANOC said it had been "widely acknowledged" that the McLaren report "needs further research before comprehensive conclusions can be drawn".

"While the McLaren report was shocking and did highlight the need for a total reform of the existing anti-doping system, ANOC does not believe there is sufficient evidence to support a complete ban of Russian athletes," ANOC added in the statement.

Reported by Mark Bissonin Rio de Janeiro

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