No More Russian Sports?

Russia has been banned from all major sporting events for the next four years by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). This means that we won’t be seeing the Russian flag at the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, as well as the 2022 World Cup.

This ban came after the Russian Anti-Doping Agency’s (Rusada) failure to cooperate fully during investigations into Russian sport, including WADA’s announcement that Rusada was non-compliant for manipulating evidence in January 2019. Even though Russia passed an amendment in April 2019 that fines athletes who are caught doping (more information here), Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev mentioned that there are still significant doping problems among the sporting community in Russia, saying that “this is impossible to deny.”

Russia has been banned from competing as a nation since 2015 after the country was banned following the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, in which Russia won 33 total medals – 13 of which were gold. According to the president of WADA, Sir Craig Reedie, Russia has been given multiple opportunities to rejoin WADA for the good of their athletes; however, Russia has continued to choose not to join.

On the other hand, some people still believe that this ban was not enough. WADA Vice President Linda Helleland “wanted sanctions that could not be watered down.” She believed that she owed it to the clean athletes to implement a strong sanction towards Russia.

Russian whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, who was influential in initially exposing the Russian doping cover-up, said that there are still more actions that need to be taken. “Those involved in the corruption should be punished retroactively.” He believed that the results of the 2012 Olympic Games in London and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi should be “reanalyzed and reconsidered with the new knowledge available today.” Similar to Helleland, Rodchenkov considers the clean athletes. “There is a whole generation of clean athletes who have painfully abandoned their dreams and lost awards because of Russian cheaters.” Both believe that the strongest action must be taken to bring integrity back to sports.

However, this ban doesn’t mean that we won’t see Russian athletes at the 2020 Olympic Games or the 2022 World Cup. Athletes who are able to prove that they have not been a part of the doping scandal will be able to compete under a neutral flag.

Hopefully we will be able to see our favorite Russian athletes competing at the highest level in the coming years. What are your thoughts about this ban, do you think it is too harsh? Too light? Comment them down below. For more information about this, visit BBC and CNN.