Russian team has been banned from Winter Olympics 2018 taking place in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Such unprecedented decision has been made by the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee during a closed session in Lozan, where 2 comprehensive reports on Russian doping scandal have been heard simultaneously. This is the first case in Olympics history when a whole country is banned from the games. This is an unprecedented knock down to Russia’s international reputation, which not only casts a shade on the sports successes, but also puts its international reputation, in a comprehensive sense of the word, into question.
Russia identifies the decision of IOC executive committee with a fraud, a manipulation organized at a state level, proving that that country is not capable of winning in fair competition. In this case, we speak of sports, but the huge international significance of the Olympic games is understandable by itself, moreover, the conclusions and the images about Russia are comprehensive, encompassing not only sports, more precisely, overspreading from sports to all fields, especially when Moscow has tried to interfere also in the latest US presidential elections through manipulations, election processes of a set of Western countries.
IOM Investigation Committee President Samuel Schmidt has informed that no such manifestation or scales of manipulation and fraud have been recorded in Olympics history. Russia’s Olympic Committee is disqualified, the former Sports Minister, currently Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko and Sochi Winter Olympiad 2014 Staff Committee Head Dmitry Chernyshenko, who is presently the leader of “Gazprom-Media”, are disqualified from all Olympic games for life.
IOC anti-doping investigation expenses, $15 million, should be covered by Russia. However, Russian humiliation is not over by the mentioned.
Sargis ARTSRUNI
