IOC contradicts proposal for sport sanctions against Russia

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said today that there is a lack of evidence regarding the Russian sports movement's involvement in alleged manipulation of samples analyzed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and supported the possibility of clean athletes participating in competition.

The statements came after the report by the WADA Executive Committee on alleged fake evidence submitted by a Russian anti-doping laboratory, with modified or deleted data from a database.

The WADA report, which is usually followed by the advice of its independent commissions, proposes to exclude Russia from the 2020 and 2022 Olympic Games, the European Football Championship and the Paralympic Games.

Russian sports authorities argued that the proposal is too severe and would harm sport in their country.

The IOC said it would support the toughest sanctions against all those responsible for manipulations in the Moscow laboratory, and asked Russia to present the raw data so that 'the shadow of suspicion over the new generation of clean Russian athletes can be removed.'

The recommendations of the WADA Compliance Review Committee will be presented to the agency executive at an extraordinary meeting in Paris on December 9, and if approved, Russia will be banned from competing in Tokyo 2020, as well as the world championships of several sports.

The IOC banned Russia from participating in the Pyeongchang Winter Games last year as punishment for the doping scandal at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

However, some Russian athletes were authorized to compete as neutrals and that remains the case according to the latest recommendations of the Compliance Committee.