I was in the vanguard of those calling on the IOC to ban the entire Russia team from the Rio Olympics. I argued in “Track Officials Ban Russians from Rio Olympics for Doping,” June 18, 2016, that:
I suspect Track and Field athletes are being punished for the sins of Russian athletes in every other sport. After all, it beggars belief to think that Russia used systemic doping to enhance the performance of these athletes, but left those in every other sport to rely on their natural abilities.
Therefore, I felt vindicated when a WADA-commissioned report found that the Russian government had been orchestrating a “vast doping program” across all Olympic sports for years – with unprecedented success during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
Never mind that its findings only confirmed the informed assertions I made over six months earlier in “In Putin’s Russia Even Athletics Is a Criminal (Doping) Enterprise,” November 9, 2015. Indeed, a report on Russia as a state sponsor of doping is every bit as redundant as one on Iran as state sponsor of terrorism.
Yet it took this WADA-commissioned report for practically every sports commentator to begin calling on the IOC to ban all Russian athletes.
As it happens, though, I speculated in my June 18 commentary that members of the IOC might be too compromised to follow through. I followed up a month later with this cautionary note in “Clarion Call to Ban All Russian Athletes from Rio Olympics for Doping,” July 18, 2016:
Putin probably has each IOC member on videotape accepting millions in bribes to award Russia the Sochi Olympics. If so, it would amount to professional suicide for the IOC to defy/betray him in this spectacular fashion.
This is why I would be pleasantly shocked if it bans all athletes without offering some way for Putin’s Russia to save face.
Sure enough, the IOC has now ruled just as any organization venally beholden to Putin would:
[The IOC] stopped short Sunday of imposing a complete ban on Russia from the Rio de Janeiro Games, assigning individual global sports federations the responsibility to decide which athletes should be cleared to compete…
The IOC rejected calls from the World Anti-Doping Agency [WADA] and dozens of other anti-doping bodies to exclude the entire Russian Olympic team following allegations of state-sponsored cheating.
Russia’s track and field athletes have already been banned by the IAAF, the sport’s governing body, a decision that was upheld Thursday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and was accepted by the IOC again on Sunday.
(Associated Press, July 24, 2016)
Given this, I am convinced, now more than ever, that the members of the IOC are venal cowards – serving more as Putin’s useful idiots than stewards of Olympic competition. Only this explains recusing themselves by punting this seminal decision off to the governing body of each sport.
On the other hand, the credibility of each Olympic sport now depends on its governing body following the IAAF by banning all Russian athletes.
Except that, despite banning them, the IAAF invited Russian athletes to show proof that they lived and trained outside Russia for an extended period and repeatedly passed independent (i.e., non-Russian) doping protocols. Reports are that two Track and Field athletes have done just that. I expect the governing bodies of other sports to extend similar invitations.
Unfortunately, as the FIFA scandal exposed, the governing bodies of far too many sports are rife with corruption. Therefore, I fear most will just follow the IOC’s lead and give Russian athletes a pass.
Still, Russia will claim persecution and feign indignation. But there’s no denying that the IOC’s failure to issue a complete ban allows it to save face. The difference between athletes being banned and the state being banned means everything for Russian pride and Putin’s fate.
Related commentaries:
Ban the Russians…
FIFA…
* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Sunday, at 12:57 p.m.