13 countries condemned IOC's decision to allow Russia to participate in the Olympics
The Anti-doping Agencies of Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States condemned the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for their unwillingness to take responsibility for the decision on the admission of Russian athletes at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, as indicated in a statement by the heads of the National Anti-doping agencies of 13 countries, the Guardian reports.
The representatives of these countries think it is wrong that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) did not make a decision regarding the admission of Russian athletes at the Olympic Games.
They said that after the report of the McLaren Commission, they asked the IOC to disqualify the Russian Olympic Committee, to suspend all Russian athletes from participation in the Olympics as well as to determine criteria under which Russian athletes could be allowed to participate in the Games under the Olympic Flag.
The IOC has not fulfilled these requirements and thus, according to representatives of the National Anti-doping agencies, violated the rights of clean athletes.
"The IOC put a difficult decision at the mercy of the International Sports Federations. The hasty instructions of the IOC were legally untenable and have led to Sports Federations adopting undisciplined and inconsistent decisions. The IOC ignored the fact that most of the Federations do not have data for decision-making on the admission of a particular athlete," the statement indicates.
According to the signatories of the document, the IOC cannot guarantee that Russians allowed to participate in the Olympics have passed doping tests previously and that only ‘clean’ athletes will take part in the Games.
Also, the authors of the statement condemned the IOC for the fact that the Committee did not allow WADA informant, Yulia Stepanova, to participate in Rio. "The IOC has demonstrated that it lacks the independence to exclude political and commercial influence. It is necessary to take radical changes to avoid similar situations in the future," the statement says.
As was previously reported, the Special Committee of three members of the International Olympic Committee will determine which of the Russian athletes be allowed to participate in the Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) by the 5th of August, 2016.