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Rio ‘quality hit’ sans Russians
MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said the absence of some Russian stars at the Rio Games would hit the quality of the competition.
MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said the absence of some Russian stars at the Rio Games would hit the quality of the competition.
“It’s obvious that the absence of Russian competitors – leaders in many disciplines – markedly lowers, and will lower the intensity of the fight and that means the spectacle at the upcoming events,” Putin told the members of the Russian Olympic team in the Kremlin.
“The other sportsmen understand that the quality of their medals will be different.”
Putin said a shadowy political plot had succeeded in unfairly stripping some Russian sportspeople of the right to compete at the Rio Olympics over doping allegations and promised to defend Russia’s tarnished sporting reputation.
“The deliberate campaign targeting our athletes was characterised by so-called double standards and opted for the idea of collective responsibility, which is not compatible with sport, justice, or the basic norms of law,” said Putin.
“It is an attempt to apply the rules which unfortunately dominate in geopolitics to the sporting world,” he said, hitting out at what he called “short-sighted political schemers.”
With Russia months away from parliamentary elections and stuck in an economic crisis, the scandal, which centres on allegations the Russian government and the FSB security service covered up doping for years, has rocked the Russian sports world and tarnished Putin’s showcase 2014 winter Olympics.
But his tactic of pinning the blame on a shadowy plot, which he has previously suggested emanates in the West, taps into voters’ patriotism and analysts say the imbroglio is unlikely to hurt his stratospheric ratings.
Putin, a keen practitioner of judo and ice hockey, made his comments to over 100 sportspeople, some of whom have been banned from going to the Rio Games next month because of doping allegations by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and other federations.
