Monday’s decision by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to ban Russia from global sporting events for a four-year period is arguably the biggest sporting crisis the country has faced till date. The anti-doping watchdog’s move will hurt Russia the most at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics where the nation’s flag, name and anthem will not be allowed. Russia will inevitably approach the Court of Arbitration for Sport with an appeal, for which it has three weeks, but if the sentence is upheld it could bar the nation from participation in several high-profile global sporting events including the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar. The saga has its roots in the scandal that erupted on the eve of the 2016 Rio Olympics, when whistle-blower reports nailed Russia for running one of the most sophisticated doping programmes. The allegations centred around the active collusion of Russian anti-doping experts, the sports ministry and members of the country’s intelligence service in replacing dope-tainted urine samples with clean ones during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. In September 2018, as part of the resolution of that case, Russia reluctantly agreed to open up its database to corroborate the findings of the reports. WADA has now ruled that the country manipulated this very database in order to cover up large-scale violations.
However, as stiff as the latest sanctions seem, there is considerable doubt among anti-doping crusaders whether the measures go far enough. Even ahead of the Rio games, WADA had recommended that Russia be expelled, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC), under President Thomas Bach, had left the decision to individual sports’ governing bodies, and, subsequently, athletes who were cleared of doping were allowed to compete as neutrals. A similar episode had played out during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games, where Russia was again banned but individual athletes competed. The IOC’s hand may be forced this time around by the sheer magnitude of the findings, but there remains a similar possibility of Russian competitors still participating. It may be worth noting that despite Sochi, Russia still played host to marquee events such as the 2015 World Aquatics Championships and the 2018 FIFA World Cup and is again slated to host the swimming event in 2025. In a sense, both the IOC and WADA have had to straddle the thin line between two powerful but opposing arguments — of punishing Russia, the country, for its misdemeanours while at the same time preserving natural justice for athletes who are clean. But, increasingly it feels like a situation where even honest sportspersons may end up paying the price for the machinations of their corrupt administrators.
