Passion for the Olympics
The anti-doping scandal, inflated by WADA and picked up by other organizations, does not subside, giving rise to the opposite effect, when the instigators have to fear further consequences and feel the effect of the principle “what goes around comes around.”
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Thus, Reuters, citing its own sources in the IOC, reported that the committee is very unhappy that the Americans played a significant role in the doping scandal against Russia and the defamation of Russian athletes. Sources say anti-American sentiment is strong within the IOC and could influence the committee's selection of bids for the 2024 Summer Olympics, rendering Los Angeles a non-starter.
As Reuters reports, “Venue choices can be decided by a small group of people and depend very much on the political situation.”
If you look at it, “pushing through” Los Angeles’ application for the United States, even without the anti-American factor, seems to be a serious problem. If only because of the presence of strong competitors who submitted applications at the same time: Rome, Paris and Budapest. Suffice it to remember that Rome hosted the Olympics back in 1960, Paris - in the immemorial 1900 (the most patriarchal Second Olympic Games, immediately after Greece, out of respect for the homeland of the founder of the modern Olympic movement Pierre de Coubertin), and Budapest never honored to be the Olympic capital. Considering that Los Angeles hosted the notorious 84 Olympics, as well as the political aftertaste from the American games around Rio, the City of Angels has every chance to fly with the Olympics like plywood over Paris.
In addition, major legal experts are beginning to express support for Russia’s official position on the legal nullity of McLaren’s “report,” which became the reason for the exclusion of Russian athletes from the Games. In particular, Forbes legal expert Ron Katz, who has 45 years of experience in the US legal system.
Ron Katz believes that McLaren's “report” is private and has no legal force. In addition, the expert directly indicates that McLaren is an interested party, since he previously “was a member of three independent commissions investigating the use of doping in Russian sports” - “It is not surprising that McLaren did not contradict himself.” In the author's opinion, if WADA really wanted to appoint an independent rapporteur, it should have chosen someone not previously associated with this issue.
Ron Katz's Achilles heel of the "report" is its anonymity. The document must identify specific defendants and specific prosecution witnesses. According to current legal standards (including American ones), the accused has the right to confront a witness. But McLaren said he could not reveal the identities of his informants. “Obviously, Russia will not be able to defend itself against unnamed accusers,” the author of the article noted. “Professor McLaren also considers the accuser to be credible. This accuser is nonetheless a whistleblower who may have interests other than seeking the truth,” Katz said.
Let us recall that the basis for McLaren’s accusation was the “testimony” of the former head of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov, but later the text of the letter was removed from the report. In addition, McLaren stated that the persons mentioned in the “report” permanently residing in the Russian Federation were not interviewed.
In fact, McLaren’s “document” is nothing more than a piece of paper, and the “case” hyped up around it is a profanation that has no legal basis and nothing to do with the restoration of justice.
Unfortunately, the media advocacy of such authoritative lawyers as Ron Katz has so far brought only moral satisfaction to the Russian side. In fact, the stupid bureaucratic machine is doing its dirty work, and yesterday it became known that the decision of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to exclude Russian athletes applies not only to the 2016 Games in Rio, but also to the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. This was reported in a letter from the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) to the “Sports Training Center for Russian National Teams” (TSSP), published on the committee’s website.
On August 31, certainty came: IPC representative Craig Spence announced that the Russian winter Paralympic team WILL NOT lose the RIGHT to participate in the 2018 Winter Paralympics in South Korea.
There is a week left before the opening of the 2016 Paralympics, but our athletes are not giving up and are trying to use every opportunity to restore their rights to participate in the Games.
On August 30, a message was received that more than 100 of our Paralympians submitted individual applications to the IPC for admission to the Games in Rio.
Everything is correct, there is no need to leave any gaps. This practice helped our Olympians who contacted the IOC. But in the case of the Paralympic athletes, there are reasonable doubts about the positive decision of the IPC, since the Paralympic businessmen have already distributed the licenses of our athletes among other national Paralympic teams. Thus, the US team won 22 additional quotas and will take to Rio a record number of Paralympians in the history of the US team - 289 athletes.
Ukraine did not remain offended either, whose Paralympic team acquired an additional 17 vacancies at the expense of our team.
The President of the RKR, Vladimir Lukin, called the actions of the MPC illegal, but Mr. Craven’s department chose not to hear this.
Meanwhile, it became known that on August 31, the Swiss Federal Court put the finishing touches by rejecting the appeal of the Russian Paralympic Committee. The verdict was published on the Federal Court website:
“The Federal Court rejects the request of the RKR for the admission of Russian athletes to participate in the Paralympic Games. The RKR cannot enter a single athlete for the Paralympic Games.”
Well, the redistribution of quotas for the Russian team was a clear signal that our team would not be allowed to compete at the Games in Rio. I would like to hope that the organized special competitions in the Moscow region will to some extent assuage the bitterness of the meanness of international courts and officials. Now is the time for the litigation sharks to enter the fray.
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