Russia has been banned from the 2018 Paralympic Games, officials announced Monday,
refusing to lift a ban because of what they called an insufficient recovery from
the Russian doping scandal.
Nonetheless, those officials said, certain disabled Russian athletes will have the
opportunity to compete at the coming Winter Games — a decision taken with some
disagreement among top Paralympics executives,
who were unanimous in their decision not to lift the ban.
"What was uncovered was not a minor breach of an obligation," Andrew Parsons,
president of the International Paralympic Committee,
said at a news conference in Bonn, Germany on Monday.
"This was an orchestrated attack on the integrity of sport."
Justifying the continued ban, Mr. Parsons pointed to Russian officials' lacking
cooperation with global sports regulators as well as their failure to acknowledge
the evidence of systematic cheating laid out nearly two years ago.
Critically, however, he also praised "solid progress" within Russia with respect to
antidoping education and drug testing — progress that had inspired confidence in
the organization's ability to distinguish between clean athletes and tainted ones,
he said.
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The Paralympic decision stands somewhat in contrast to the International Olympic
Committee's ruling on Russia's participation in the 2018 Winter Games next month in
Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Unlike their Olympic counterparts, Paralympic officials had not previously allowed
Russian athletes to bypass the ban and compete as individuals outside of qualifying
events this fall.
Olympic officials, who nominally banned Russia last month,
have given 169 Russian athletes special clearance to compete when the Olympics
begin on Feb. 9.
(The Paralympics, the global showcase for disabled athletes,
will follow on March 9.)
Mr. Parsons said Monday that Paralympic officials would allow up to 35 Russian
athletes who met "strict conditions," including a rigorous history of drug testing,
to compete in Pyeongchang as neutral athletes in a handful of sports,
including alpine skiing, biathlon and wheelchair skiing.
That number that is roughly half the size of the team Russia typically sends.
"Different from the Rio period when we couldn't guarantee which athletes were clean
and which athletes were not," Mr. Parsons said, referring to the 2016 Games,
where no Russian Paralympian competed, "now we can have a very good understanding
of which athletes were clean and which athletes are not."
Each Russian Paralympian who is approved to compete, he said,
will be identified in competition as a "Neutral Paralympic Athlete." Olympic
officials have approved individual Russian athletes to be identified by their
nationality, as "Olympic athlete from Russia."
Asked by a Russian journalist why Paralympic officials were not similarly allowing
Russian athletes to show their national pride,
Paralympic officials stressed that there were consequences,
given that Russia remained suspended.
"We cannot use the name Russia in the title of team," Craig Spence,
spokesman for the International Paralympic Committee, said.
Russia's state-backed cheating, deconstructed in investigative reports in 2016,
corrupted the results of numerous major global competitions across disciplines and
years — most dramatically the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Sochi, Russia.
At those Paralympics, the host nation won 80 medals,
nearly five dozen more than the second-ranking country.
Immediately after the revelations that Russian Paralympians had used anabolic
steroids to gain an edge over their competitors in Sochi,
the Paralympic Committee banned Russia in August 2016, weeks ahead of the Rio Games.
Philip Craven, then head of the committee,
denounced Russia as having chosen "medals over morals."
In the roughly 18 months that followed, Paralympic officials outlined criteria for
Russia's path to reinstatement, including that Russian officials accept the
detailed evidence of their systematic cheating.
Another stipulation was that Russia's antidoping agency be recertified by the
global regulator of drugs in sports.
Last November, that regulator denied Russia's appeal for reinstatement, citing,
in part, Russian officials' lack of cooperation in sharing evidence from Moscow.
Russian officials have apologized broadly for doping problems while refuting that
the state directed widespread cheating.
In recent months leading up to decisions about the 2018 Games,
Moscow escalated its prosecution of a key whistle-blower living in the United
States, Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, against whom criminal charges were filed in Russia
in November.
Earlier this month, hackers tied to the Russian government released a new crop of
stolen emails seeking to expose — and perhaps stoke — discord between global sports
officials and antidoping authorities.
Russia's inability to participate in the last Paralympics in Brazil provoked
particularly pointed outcry from top Russian officials.
President Vladimir V. Putin criticized the ban as "outside of the law,
outside of morals and outside of humanity," characterizing sanctions against the
nation's handicapped athletes as a Western effort to humiliate Russia's weakest,
most vulnerable citizens.
"It's just cynical to take it out on people for whom sport has become the meaning
of life," Mr. Putin said in 2016, describing Russia's banned Paralympians as "those
who by their example give millions of people with limited capabilities hope and
faith in their power."
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