Banned!

Congratulations, Russia!  Your past has finally caught up with you.  For the first time ever, an entire class of athletes from a specific country have been banned from the Olympics because of cheating.  The International Association of Athletics Federations [IAAF] banned Russia’s entire track and field team from competing in the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics.  The World Anti-Doping Agency [WADA] established an Independent Commission to conduct an inquiry into the allegations made by the German broadcaster ARD.  The Independent Commission verified the broadcast’s claims, the report of which detailed a culture of cheating in Russian athletics supported by the Russian state.  After the Independent Commission published its report last November, the IAAF banned Russia’s track and field athletes from international competitions.  They told the Russians to get their act together or face the consequence, that being the IAAF would make the ban stick and apply it to this year’s Olympics.  Perhaps Russia thought the IAAF was bluffing.

On June 15^th, WADA issued a follow-up report, and apparently the Russians didn’t get the message.  Maybe they think that because they are a “great power” the rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to them.  Some of the findings include [but are not limited to] the following:  

--Doping Control Officers [DCOs] faced intimidation and threats of expulsion from Russian security services;  

--Packages containing samples from tested athletes were tampered with by Russian customs officials; --Security staff created significant delays for DCOs in entering venues and consistently monitored once inside (Race Walking in February and Wrestling in May);  

--Schedules not released until the day prior to or day of competition;  

--Challenging to find events because at times only a region is provided for the location, not a specific venue or city;  

--736 drug tests of Russian athletes were canceled for various reasons  

• 669 due to sample collection authority lack of capacity  
• 2 due to athletes "retiring"  
• 25 as a result in change of whereabouts  
• 40 recorded due to “other reasons”  
• 22 requests to test at competitions declined  

--National Championships for Olympic Sports including Olympic qualifiers held in cities with restricted access due to ongoing civil conflicts resulting in service providers declining test requests;  

--Military cities often used as location of whereabouts [athletes know that special permission is needed to gain access].   

Vladimir Putin complains this is “mass punishment” and that banning all Russian track and field athletes is unfair.  Putin of all people should be well aware of the concept of “mass punishment.”  He served a regime that: 1) deported thousands of Lithuanian, Estonian and Latvian intellectuals to Siberia 75 years ago this week [most didn’t return]; 2) deported thousands of Crimean Tatars to Siberia in 1944 for alleged collaboration with the Nazis; 3) executed thousands of Polish military officers and intellectuals in 1940 [Katyn Forest] for the crime of being Polish and for having independent thought; and 4) unleashed the Holodomor on Ukraine, an act of genocide that starved millions of Ukrainians to death.  Cries of mass punishment from Vladimir Putin ring hollow.  

The Russians are an interesting bunch.  They’re not satisfied with breaking the rules to get a leg up on their competition in track and field.  Russian “soccer fans” [not unlike English football hooligans before them] are in France for Euro 2016, seemingly for the sole purpose of beating the shit out of fans from other countries just because they can.  Such is their hooliganism that even FIFA is mad at them.  Their behavior is such that FIFA has threatened to disqualify Russia from the remainder of Euro 2016.  This point might be moot in a few days because the team will probably be going home early because of their own ineptitude.  To incur the wrath of FIFA, an organization that has its own significant issues with corruption, takes a special talent.  If FIFA really wants to get Russia’s attention, they could take the 2018 FIFA World Cup away from Russia.  I don’t see that happening, but I can always dream.  

The Russians treat sports the same way they do international affairs.  Because they used to be a great power, they think they have special status and can get away with anything.  But now, not only do they endure political and economic sanction for their bad behavior in Ukraine, they also face sanction from the sports world.  This won’t change as along as Vladimir Putin breathes.