Russia Track Team Banned From Rio Olympics

Concerted efforts by Russian Sports authorities to get its athletes off the hook of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) have failed. The global Athletics ruling body announced this afternoon that the Russian track and field team has been banned from the Olympic games which will kick off in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro this August.

The IAAF sanctions came on the heels of damning investigations by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) which indicted the Russian athletes and officials of complicity in several offences including attempts to compromise dope test reults and attempting to bribe the regulatory officials. WADA accused Russia of government-sponsored doping. They also alleged that the indicted Russian athletes tried to smuggle in clean urine samples (other than the original ones) and when their schemes failed, the athletes made efforts to bribe the officials. The dope control agency also revealed that the Russian authorities compromised a recent drug test process which clearly indicted a good number of Russian boxers who were already primed for the Olympics. There was also the case of armed federal police officers who threatened drug testers who were to collect athletes’ urine samples who eventually discovered that the containers had been tampered with, supposedly by Russian customs operatives.

Having failed to influence the IAAF decision through a last minute plea to Sebastian Coe, boss of the primal global athletics body, Russia’s Sports Minister, Vitaly Mutko has expressed the former Soviet nation’s resolve to pursue the matter to the last. The hopes of a possible reprieve rests on the presentation which they intend to make at the summit of the International Olympic Committee which will host a wide range of world sports leaders next Tuesday.

Moments after the ban was pronounced, Russia’s sporting circles went viral with a hue and cry. They believe mostly that the IAAF sanctions are politically motivated. A section of critics believes that the ban has a lot to do with the squabble that ensued from the ill-fated match between Russia and England at the on-going UEFA European Championship in France. The Marseille disaster left scores of fans seriously injured with the English team supporters suffering more of the casualties.

The ban announcement came after the Russian President, Vladmir Putin, spoke at the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. The leader has however held to the belief that the judgment is politically motivated saying that there should be “no collective punishment” of athletes. “If somebody is trying to politicise this, that’s a big mistake,” Mr. Putin said of the accusations, also that doping in sports is a global problem and Russia had been unfairly singled out.