Bach issues doping ban warning
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IOC President Thomas Bach said yesterday that athletes and federations face tough sanctions of up to a lifetime ban as he warned that doping has hit “an unprecedented level of criminality”.
The International Olympic Committee leader also stepped up calls on Russia to clear up accusations of interference in testing at its doping laboratory during the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
In a new sign of pressure on Russian sport, the New York Times said US prosecutors have started an investigation into doping by Russian athletes.
With 31 athletes from 12 countries already facing a ban from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August after new tests on samples from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Bach warned of new punishment if accusations against Russia were proved.
The allegations against the Sochi laboratory are “very detailed and therefore very worrying”, Bach said in a commentary published in various newspapers.
“Should the investigation prove the allegations true it would represent a shocking new dimension in doping with an ...unprecedented level of criminality.”
He said sanctions “could range from life-long Olympic bans for any implicated person, to tough financial sanctions, to acceptance of suspension or exclusion of entire national federations like the already existing one for the Russian athletics federation.”
The International Association of Athletics Federations suspended Russia in November after the World Anti-Doping Agency said there was a “state-sponsored” doping campaign in Russian athletics.
Bach warned that a WADA inquiry into Russia’s actions in Sochi in 2014 could “greatly influence” whether its athletes are allowed to return for Rio.
With doping scandals mounting, the IOC revealed on Tuesday that 31 athletes from the 2008 Beijing Games had failed tests after their samples were reexamined. The athletes are from 12 countries.
Some 454 Beijing tests were re-examined and the results from 250 samples retested from the 2012 London Games will be announced in a week, officials said.
The IOC executive board has demanded that WADA start “a fully fledged investigation” into allegations that Russia’s secret services and sports ministry subverted testing at the laboratory for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
This has been alleged by a former head of the Russian anti-doping agency now in hiding in the United States.
The IOC has instructed its lab in Lausanne to re-examine samples from Sochi “using the most modern and efficient methods at its disposal”.
US authorities have meanwhile opened an investigation into the allegations of government-orchestrated doping in Russia, the New York Times reported, quoting people with knowledge of the probe led by the US attorney’s office in New York.
Prosecutors are investigating Russian government officials, athletes, coaches, anti-doping authorities and others who could stand to profit, said the Times.
Even though the case involves people living outside the US, US courts allow prosecutors to bring cases against foreigners abroad if there is at least a tenuous connection to the US.
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