South Korea wants to see ‘clean’ Russian athletes at 2018 Olympics

The 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea would like to see Russian athletes not implicated in doping abuse in its venues, the president of the PyeongChang Organizing Committee said last Thursday. 

The statements come after a doping scandal, simmering since 2014, which broke out in July 2016 when the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) independent commission headed by Richard McLaren presented a report accusing Russia of running a state-wide doping program and urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to consider a blanket ban on the entire Russian Olympic team. The IOC instead let individual sports federations act on the issue.

“We do not tolerate doping and these sort of scandals are unpleasant, but we advocate that all clean athletes who have won the right to compete in PyeongChang to do so, including Russian [athletes],” Lee Hee-beom said at a briefing in Gangneung city.

As a result of the IOC ruling, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) banned Russian athletes from taking part in international competitions including the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil. The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) later banned all Russian Paralympic athletes from the 2016 Summer Paralympics and the 2018 Winter Games in South Korean Pyeongchang.

On December 9, 2016, the Wada issued the second part of the report on alleged Russian doping abuse, revealing alleged manipulations by athletes in 30 disciplines. PNA/Sputnik