It hasn't been a good week for Russian sport which began with the threat of expulsion from Euro 2016 and ended with the IAAF’s ban Russian track and field athletes competing at the Rio Olympics.
Russia insists it has been doing everything possible to clean up its act but the report from the World Anti-Doping Agency says otherwise so it will now be Rwanda following out Romania at the opening ceremony in 48 days time.
The WADA report explains how testing officers were intimidated and deliberately misled and how athletes giving addresses in closed military cities making it impossible to test them.
Of course there is sympathy for the country’s honest athletes who are the innocent victims of the blanket ban on competing but such is the grey area of drugs in Russian athletics, it appears to be the correct decision.
What i don't agree with is allowing athletes to race again once their ban for doping has expired, they still have the benefits to their body gained from when they were legally taking performance enhancing drugs, such as muscles developed while taking steroids, so a life ban would not only put a stop to anyone gaining an advantage but act as a deterrent.
In the 100 metre final at the last World Championships in Beijing, of the seven finalists, four
have served bans for taking banned substances and we have no reason to doubt that even without Russia competing in the summer Olympics, we will still be watching athletes who are either profiting, or have profited, from chemical enhancements.
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