A Decision Dishonoring the Olympics

2016/7/27 0:42:59

“…the extraordinary scale of Russia’s doping program, with government agents swapping out urine samples through a hole in the wall, required the I.O.C. to take a decisive stand against the corruption of international sport. Instead, the committee opted for a weak, chaotic response whose main effect is to take Russia off the hook.”

 


By THE EDITORIAL BOARD of the New York Times, JULY 26, 2016

 

After the World Anti-Doping Agency confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt that the Russian government ran the biggest criminal doping program in the history of international sport, demeaning every notion of what athletic competition stands for, Russian athletes led by a Russian flag will still march at the Olympic opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 5.

 

By any reasonable measure of justice and fairness, Russia should be banned from the Games, as WADA and several national Olympic committees and Olympic athletes demanded. While doping is not limited to Russian athletes, the idea that a government would harness its scientists, athletes, secret services and bureaucrats to cheat on a scale surpassing even East Germany’s infamous Cold War program demands an unequivocal condemnation.

 

Instead, Thomas Bach — the head of the International Olympic Committee,who had called Russia’s cheating a “shocking new dimension in doping” and an “unprecedented level of criminality” — caved in and passed the buck. On Sunday, he announced that the I.O.C. was leaving it to individual sports federations to rule on which Russian athletes could compete.

 

Mr. Bach claimed the decision was meant to balance individual justice and collective punishment. Feigning evenhandedness, he added that this “may not please everybody on either side.”

 

Well, it sure pleased the Russian government, which can now claim the cheating was merely the acts of individual athletes.

 

Access complete text of the editorial below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/opi ... onoring-the-olympics.html

 

 

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