Olympic Autonomy On Life Support As IOC Bosses Favour State Doping & Schism

Editorial

The International Olympic Committee having abdicated its duty and allowed woodworm to carry on munching away at the structure of the Olympic Movement, super troupers now turn to FINA. What will it do?

Does it, for example, have the names of those who produced just shy of 20 ‘disappeared’ positives in swimming. The World Anti-Doping Agency that recommend a blanket ban but was ignored knows the names; the IOC must also know the names; FINA will also know the names (and if it does not by now – then go and find out and please don;t go another day with not a single word on your website – it is as if FINA hasn’t even noticed that a doping crisis has even unfolded).

As FINA deliberates whether to deliberate and as domestic Olympic Committees such as those of Australia and elsewhere endorse an  IOC decision that might be described as lipstick on a pig if it were not for the fact that might be insulting to pigs heading out to party, clean athletes have good reason to ask ‘who serves us?’

Meanwhile, the autonomy of world sport’s governance and its realm is on a ventilator.

Why? Because national governments around the world now have good reason to look at the IOC and ask: so, you are not listening to vast waves of leading athletes, coaches and officials and official bodies from around the world, you have ignored the views of human rights watch leaders but you have listened to the lobbying of Vladimir Putin, Vitaly Mutko and the very team of people at the very heart of the rot in Russia?

The Russian Olympic Committee is a body beyond reproach, we are let to believe. Of course, few believe it and even fewer still have faith in Putin’s choice of the man to lead his ‘independent’ anti-doping commission: Vitaly Smirnov, the honorary member of the International Olympic Committee. To call anything headed by such a man independent is like placing a fox in charge of the hen coop.

When those other governments that have not been involved in state-sponsored doping turn their heads towards such things, they will raise (some already have) the issue of what happens next to the Olympic Movement. They will ask the question: is it not time that you were regulated by independent authorities and subjected to laws and the constant scrutiny of an ombudsman?

That would now be a more than reasonable proposition to put at a time when the IOC executive board holds a meeting in camera on the most important matter it has ever faced (the 1972 Munich attacks were handled largely beyond its realm; coseying up to the Nazis in 1936 and beyond was never considered a crisis in the circles of the IOC; State Plan 14:25 was never considered a crisis in the circles of the IOC etc) but does not divulge the details of who said what to whom, when and how they voted. Transparency? No, of course not.

Reasonable response? Of course not. The third finding beyond top woe in Richard McLaren’s report is that several government bodies, led by the Russian Ministry of Sport, were involved in ‘state sponsored’ doping.

McLaren confirmed that the ministry, the FSB, and the CSP were “intertwined” in doping; that Deputy Minister for Sport, Yuri Nagornykh, ordered the collection of clean urine samples.

Within a few hours of the McLaren report being released, Yury Nagornykh (right) was removed from office. That was official confirmation that Russia itself accepted that the state was up to its neck.

McLaren added that it is “inconceivable” that Vitaly Mutko, the Minister for Sport, was not aware of what was happening. Ant yet, there was Mutko smiling, smirking and pronouncing for Russia that all was now well in the Olympic world, the IOC’s decision just the one he’d wanted minus the bit where the previously doped might not get to race in Rio.

The day of national government making its presence felt over national Olympic committee has dawned. And not before time. Here’s an example of the responses of non-Russian Governments, Rio 2016 the very start of a process in which taxpayers around the world who fund the Olympic Movement to a large degree but are never considered (that includes holding night finals to suit a foreign broadcaster without anyone ever asking what the thoughts of a Brazilian public that will be paying for the Games long after NBC has shipped its last camera crew out) can expect independent oversight of the IOC, all member federations and the entire anti-doping realm:

Australia’s response to IOC Russia decision

From The Hon Sussan Ley MP, Minister for Health and Aged Care, Minister for Sport

(N.B. – Mrs Ley did not order clean urine to be collected from Australian Olympic athletes so that it might be swapped with urine containing banned substances through a hole in the wall of the lab set to test samples in Rio; Mrs Ley work with the secret services of her country in order to cheat the Olympic Movement – just noting that in case the IOC should be interested in such things)

Sussan Ley

The Australian Government notes the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision overnight and the Australian Olympic Committee’s (AOC) endorsement of it this morning.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)-instigated McLaren report has delivered compelling evidence of a systematic and sophisticated state-directed doping program in Russia that cannot be ignored.

I will be urgently seeking the AOC’s reassurance that Australian athletes will not be negatively impacted or unfairly disadvantaged by this decision.

I am also mindful there may be future revelations resulting from the McLaren investigation and will be looking for appropriate responses from the IOC, AOC and International Sporting Federations if …

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