Russian president Vladimir Putin has declared that his country’s track and field athletes are victims of ‘discrimination’, insisting that they will not accept the campaign to project the embattled country in bad light.
More than 100 athletes have been expelled from the 387-strong Russian Olympic team in the wake of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s damning report into the country’s sport.
Addressing athletes at a Kremlin send-off ceremony, which also included dozens of banned sportspersons, Putin said that medals won by other nations at the Rio Olympics will have ‘no taste at all’, the Guardian reported.
While Russia avoided a blanket ban from the International Olympic Committee, around 68 track and field athletes were ruled out after their appeal against the ban was dismissed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport last week.