Russian track and field team banned from Rio Olympics
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There will be no track and field athletes competing under the Russian flag at the Rio Olympics after the world athletics governing body ruled they had not met readmission criteria imposed when they suspended over widespread state sponsored doping in November last year.
The unprecedented step was taken by the International Association of Athletics Federations because an expert task force ruled that Russia had not taken sufficient steps to overhaul its testing procedures and prove its athletes were clean. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, described the decision as “unjust and unfair”.
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Other Russian athletes, including the double Olympic gold medallist Yelena Isinbayeva, had said they will appeal. Following the decision Isinbayeva said the Olympic ban was “discrimination against Russians” and said she would appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
“This is a human rights violation. I will not remain silent, I will take measures,” she told the Tass news agency. “I’m upset for myself and the team of clean athletes who ended up out of work. No one protected us, no one defended our rights and the IAAF’s position on protecting the rights of clean athletes raises big doubts.
“We are being accused of something we didn’t do. I first of all consider this to be discrimination against Russians.”
That is a bit unfair to the clean athletes but at least they can go individually and anyway they are kind of bad at track and field now so its not like they are missing out on many medals.
It was very well deserved, Russia was given the chance to clean up their anti doping program to get the banned lifted before the olypmics but they made very little progress
The definition of #FirstWorldProblems