On Friday the 17th June Sebastien Coe, President of the world athletics governing body the IAAF, announced that Russian athletes would be unable to compete at the Olympic Games this summer. It was decided that since Russia was caught implementing a programme of “state sponsored doping” in November 2015, they have not done enough to correct their ways and warrant a return to international competition.
Lord Coe stated, “Although good progress has been made, the IAAF council was unanimous that RUSAF had not met the reinstatement conditions.
He went on to suggest, “Russian athletes cannot credibly return to international competition without undermining the confidence of their competitors and the public.”
In response to the ban, Yelena Isinbayeva, the Russian pole vaulter and double Olympic Champion has criticised the decision, and argued that as a clean athlete, to be banned as a consequence of the mistakes of others is an infringement of her human rights.
Meanwhile Russia’s sports minister Vitaly Mutko had previously threatened legal action should Russia not be reinstated prior to the Rio games.
If Russia had been allowed to return from the wilderness in time for Rio having only been banned for one major event, the World Indoor Championships, then trust in the sport would now be completely, irreversibly destroyed.
The sad reality of this story is that undoubtably the ban will result in innocent Russian athletes missing the chance to compete in the biggest event of their lives.
Undoubtedly years of hard training in preparation for the event will be wasted as a result. However you should also not doubt that upholding such a ban was an absolute necessity, to save the reputation of an already tarnished sport.
In writing her piece for the New York Times entitled “Let Me Compete in Rio”, Isinbayeva has shown a complete misunderstanding of what this whole scandal is truly about.
It is NOT about individual athletes and whether or not they take performance enhancing drugs. It is not even about groups of athletes working together to avoid detection. In fact, in a way it is not really about athletes at all.
What it is about, is a governing body, the people that are supposed to be in charge, systematically facilitating and encouraging cheating. It is about those in power, not the athletes, those that are supposed to enforce the rules and ensure fair competition, deliberately breaking those rules and in the process demonstrating a complete lack of respect for the sport.
When Dr Grigory Rodchenkov (ex head of Moscow’s anti-doping lab) and others conspired to hide positive tests, they were killing the sport over which they governed.
Even before Russia’s systematic abuses came to light, athletics had been getting slowly torn apart as athletes were constantly caught doping. New cheats are caught almost every month, and relatively short bans for athletes that are caught has resulted in some events occurring with more athletes that have been caught doping on the start line than clean athletes.
If Russia had been allowed to return from the wilderness in time for Rio having only been banned for one major event, the World Indoor Championships, then trust in the sport would now be completely, irreversibly destroyed.
Complete trust that any Russian world class performance is genuine would be impossible. Furthermore, trust in the IAAF that it is doing its best to ensure cheats are adequately punished, would be impossible, because it would have shown the world that even systematic, state sponsored cheating would result in only an eight month ban.
Here lies the crux of the issue which Isinbayeva clearly doesn’t fully understand. If she, or any Russian athlete were to compete at Rio, how could we possibly know they were clean?
In 2004 Dwain Chambers the British 100 metre sprinter was banned for two years after testing positive for an anabolic steroid.
One athlete, for one indiscretion, received a two year ban.
Are we really supposed to trust that in only eight months, an entire nation has completely changed its ways? The IAAF’s Rune Andersen has suggested their culture of doping has not yet changed at all, so the chances of that being the case, is somewhat slim…
Moreover, even if an athlete has never failed a drugs test before, that in no way proves that they are clean now. Recently 54 blood and urine samples from the London 2012 and Beijing 2008 Olympics were retrospectively tested and came up positive for banned substances. 22 of the positive samples came from Russian athletes.
So in the current context, considering everything we know, there is no way that any Russian athlete can be trusted, regardless of whether they are supposedly clean.
If neither the spectators, nor their fellow competitors can trust their performances, then the event becomes a sham.
For that reason there should be no Russian athletes at the Rio games.
Athletes like Isinbayeva who have never been caught doping will rightly feel aggrieved and it is a tragedy that such athletes should be caught in the crossfire. But they must be caught in the crossfire in order to save the sport.
Ensuring the survival of the sport as a spectacle is more important than any individual athlete is, or ever will be.
If Isinbayeva does take her case to court then she may well win. There is no doubt that she has a case. However if she does so she will be severely threatening the credibility of the sport she herself adores so much.
When he made his statement on the 17th June and stated Russians could not compete without “undermining the confidence of their competitors and the public”, Seb Coe showed a clear understanding of this point. We must hope that Isinbayeva and others come to understand the same.