THREE cheers for the IAAF. They alone among the world’s sports federations have had the guts to ban a Russian team from competing in Rio.
With the totally corrupt state-inspired doping regime in Russia laid bare, the IAAF acted prudently so that the world’s clean athletes would not have to compete against the products of a system based on cheating. There may be some Russian athletes who have not resorted to doping but they would find it impossible to prove their innocence. It’s no good claiming they have never failed a doping test when it’s clear that immense numbers of samples were falsified or thrown away.
Yelena Isinbayeva
Those who really have reached the top honestly – and one hopes that such great athletes as Yelena Isinbayeva and Sergey Shubenkov are among them – should not blame the IAAF or WADA or the CAS. They should blame their own administrators, coaches, medics etc who for years have enabled dozens of Russian athletes to cheat their way to records, medals and financial rewards.
It is highly probable that President Putin made it clear to his Ministry of Sport that high level success was imperative, regardless of the methods used.