Russia Banned From 2020 Olympics as Part of Four-Year Punishment

Photo: Chris J. Ratcliffe, Getty Images

by Derek Levendusky, AWW staff writer

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND - BBC Sport is reporting that Russia has received a four-year ban from that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). This includes the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, and soccer’s 2022 World Cup in Qatar, along with all other international competitions. This came after the NY Times reported in September that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had given Russia three weeks to explain how positive drug tests were deleted from the database sent in to the anti-doping regulator. WADA warned that a failure to accommodate the agency could result in a widespread ban from sports.

This does not mean all Russian athletes are forbidden to compete. Substance-free athletes will be able to compete under a neutral flag if they can prove to WADA that they were not part of the doping scandal. However, the world will not see the Russian national flag or hear the Russian national anthem at any international events until 2025.

The BBC reports that Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev complained that the ban is part of “chronic anti-Russia hysteria.” Medvedev continued, “It is obvious that significant doping problems still exist in Russia, I mean our sporting community. This is impossible to deny. But on the other hand the fact that all these decisions are repeated, often affecting athletes who have already been punished…makes one think that this is part of anti-Russian hysteria which has become chronic.”

The decision came down in a unanimous vote in a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland on Monday.

In May of 2016, The NY Times published allegations by Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of Russia's anti-doping laboratory, that a conspiracy of systemic corruption implemented by anti-doping officials, FSB (Federal Security Service) intelligence agents, and Russian athletes in on the scheme, resulted in Olympians using banned substances to cheat in Sochi. Part of the cover-up, according to Rodchenkov, included the FSB tampering with over 100 urine samples. He also indicated that as much as a third of the Russian medals won at Sochi were doping-related.

FloWrestling’s “Wrestling Nomad” Dan Lobdell claimed on Twitter that WADA’s decision will have no affect on the weights that Russia qualified and that even though Russian athletes might compete independently, they will not have to re-qualify the weights.

Russia has three weeks to appeal the ban.