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UCI clarifies position on Russian cyclists at Rio

Three Russian riders "potentially implicated" in WADA's McLaren report; Russia withdraws three others...

The UCI has clarified its position on Russian cyclists competing at the Olympic Games in Rio following the decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last week to leave it up to individual sporting governing bodies to decide whether the doping scandal-hit country's athletes should be allowed to participate.

That decision from the IOC followed the publication last week of the McLaren report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency on the extent of doping among Russia's athletes, and state-sanctioned cover-ups of positive tests, following earlier investigations by the media and the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF).

The McLaren report found that hundreds of positive anti-doping tests returned by Russian athletes had been concealed, for example by substituting the original samples for clean ones, sometimes with the collusion of state security forces.

> Could all Russia's athletes be banned from Olympics in light of WADA report?

UCI president Brian Cookson subsequently said that the UCI would examine Russian cyclists due to compete at Rio on a case-by-case basis. Now, the governing body says that it has cleared 11 of them to ride at next month's Olympics, while three will be investigated as a result of being implicated by the McLaren report.

The UCI also said that three cyclists who have previously served doping bans, and who were named in the original Russian team, had been withdrawn from the squad for Rio by the Russian Olympic Committee.

While no names were mentioned, those riders are believed to be men's team pursuit squad member Sergey Shilov, Olga Zabelinskaya, who won bronze in the road race and time trial at London 2012, and Katusha rider Ilnur Zakarin, winner of a stage in this year's Tour de France.

Here's the UCI's statement in full:

Based on the decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board requesting that each International Sports Federation determine the eligibility of Russian athletes able to compete in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announces that it has communicated the information below to the IOC.

Following the publication of the McLaren Investigation Report, the UCI immediately sought information from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) related to the sport of cycling and was informed that three riders named by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) to compete in Rio 2016 were potentially implicated. The UCI, through the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF), is in the process of identifying relevant rider samples and is in close dialogue with WADA to move forward with these cases immediately. It has also passed the names of these three athletes to the IOC in the context of its Executive Board decision.

Three other riders who have previously been sanctioned for Anti-Doping Rule Violations have been withdrawn by the ROC.

In addition, the CADF has carried out a careful assessment on the other 11 riders named by the ROC to participate in Rio 2016 cycling events. After thorough analysis of the testing history of these riders and considering the scrutiny currently being applied to all of them, the UCI and CADF believe that this is sufficient for these athletes to meet the relevant requirement of the decision of the IOC Executive Board.

The examination has purposely not considered tests conducted by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). Furthermore, it is also important to stress that since the publication of the Independent Commission Report in November 2015, the UCI requested that the CADF intensify testing of Russian cyclists – and this level of heightened testing will continue before, during and after Rio 2016.

The UCI is absolutely committed to protecting the rights of clean athletes at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and beyond.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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11 comments

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700c | 7 years ago
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Looks like the London 2012 retrospective testing back in May actually focussed on Russian and Belarrusian athletes - hence the high number of Russians caught out, possibly a bit discriminatory or perhaps using their intel wisely to catch some 'low hanging fruit'

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/may/27/olympics-23-athletes-caught-out-london-2012-drug-retests

Really frustrating how the names aren't officially released - if this was in cycling then the names would immediately be in the public domain.

I don't think the IOC are fully comitted in clamping down on doping. Their head is in the sand just as UCI's was with Lance Armstrong. Perhaps some names are just too big in sport to risk exposing them by applying properly robust testing.

Where WADA have found serious inadequacies in the testing of any countries they should apply sanctions to those countries when competing internationally, as how can you have confidence that what you're seeing is genuine? e.g. this could then apply not just to Russia, but to Bellarus, Kenya and Jamaica too. I'm sure there are more in this category, just that Russia are the most blatant.

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Jimnm | 7 years ago
0 likes

All countries that compete in sports have an element that will cheat. Regardless of what they do between games/events is irrelevant, not being so nieve as to think that athletes don't time their doping to register clean for said games/events. They all do it IMO. Independent tests should be done and probably are to catch cheats, it's a science to beat the system.  The smart cheats will always win and nothing will change that. It's always been and always will be. 

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gonedownhill | 7 years ago
0 likes

Not very fair on those who weren't involved to ban everyone, but without some collatoral in the punishment is there really much to disencentivise these kinds of state run doping programmes? 

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Jimnm | 7 years ago
1 like

Blanket ban on Russia isn't very sporting.

leave it to the dope testers to catch individuals, then ban the offender(s)

keep politics out of sport 

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DrJDog replied to Jimnm | 7 years ago
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Jimnm wrote:

Blanket ban on Russia isn't very sporting.

leave it to the dope testers to catch individuals, then ban the offender(s)

keep politics out of sport 

 

The dope testers in Russia's case were complicit in hiding failed tests.

I don't know what you mean in this case by 'keep politics out of sport.' The entire Russian sporting system seems corrupt almost to the highest level in the Russian government. It is by definition politics to discuss what should happen as a consequence of that.

 

Perhaps you mean the dope testers in Rio should be the ones responsible? But then you are saying that the athletes can do whatever they like between big games, since between those games it's mostly the national sporting bodies that are responsible for testing. That hardly seems sporting on those whose national bodies actually do test and ban athletes.

 

Christine Ohurougu wasn't banned, so the British haven't got a clean conscience here, really.

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FatBoyW | 7 years ago
1 like

Pathetic mealy mouthed reaction to being swindled systematically by a country. The IOC, and every federation that has not banned the whole country should be ashamed of themselves.

Russia as a whole should have been denied access to world Olympic competition for at least four years.

its not as if we live in a world where it leaves the clean athletes with no alternative, go and represent a country with a bit of dosh and a real drugs program.

what a sham - so a country can subvert the system, produce amazing athletes (out of competition). Then when they are in the parlance not 'hot' let em go and race as if they have trained in the same way as say, Chris Froome. 

Every Olympic result by a Russian should also be deleted from the records for at least 4 years back too.  The message should be clear - get your national anti doping agency and regime up to scratch or risk losing all results. Then maybe some other countries might also sort their issues out?

Avatar
tritecommentbot replied to FatBoyW | 7 years ago
2 likes

FatBoyW wrote:

Pathetic mealy mouthed reaction to being swindled systematically by a country. The IOC, and every federation that has not banned the whole country should be ashamed of themselves.

Russia as a whole should have been denied access to world Olympic competition for at least four years.

its not as if we live in a world where it leaves the clean athletes with no alternative, go and represent a country with a bit of dosh and a real drugs program.

what a sham - so a country can subvert the system, produce amazing athletes (out of competition). Then when they are in the parlance not 'hot' let em go and race as if they have trained in the same way as say, Chris Froome. 

Every Olympic result by a Russian should also be deleted from the records for at least 4 years back too.  The message should be clear - get your national anti doping agency and regime up to scratch or risk losing all results. Then maybe some other countries might also sort their issues out?

 

Out of 14 riders, only 3 are suspected.

 

Yet you want them all banned.

 

Sounds legit.

Avatar
pjay | 7 years ago
3 likes

Zakurin's performance in the TdF was completely unbelievable.

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Gasman Jim replied to pjay | 7 years ago
0 likes

pjay wrote:

Zakurin's performance in the TdF was completely unbelievable.

I thought so too.

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tritecommentbot | 7 years ago
0 likes

Russian thing's boring now.

 

Want to know when we're getting the results from the Beijing Olympics. They've caught a bunch of them from all over the world.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/22/ioc-beijing-london-drug-te...

 

London Olympic games soon too I'm guessing. Must be a lot of olympians losing sleep 

 

Avatar
700c replied to tritecommentbot | 7 years ago
0 likes
unconstituted wrote:

Russian thing's boring now.

 

Want to know when we're getting the results from the Beijing Olympics. They've caught a bunch of them from all over the world.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/22/ioc-beijing-london-drug-te...

 

London Olympic games soon too I'm guessing. Must be a lot of olympians losing sleep 

 

We've been waiting since May for names, following the first batch of revelations about re-tested samples from 2008 & 2012 (approx half of which Russian apparently)

But I wouldn't hold your breath  2

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