08.12.2017, China.
The ban of the Russian select team from the 2018 Winter Olympics is [an example of] a “Cold War” in sports, stated Deputy Director General of the Beijing Hockey Club ‘Kunlun Red Star’, Li Longmou in his interview on December 6, RIA Novosti news agency reports.
Longmou noticed, about the possibility of the Russian team to take part under a neutral white flag, that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced its decision too late and the Russian athletes have not had time for the suitable training. The spokesman of the Chinese club thinks it strange that the IOC did not begin to move the accusation against the Russian select team after the 2016 Summer Olympics in the Brazil when they have all evidence.
“The decision of the IOC does have political undertones…”, said Longmou.
The IOC suggested conditions of participation of the Russian athletes in the 2018 Winter Olympics that will begin in February only on December 5, 2017. A discussion of the decision with Russian spokesman will not happen until December 12.
Editorial Comment
The doping scandal over Russia and its Anti-Doping Agency has been inflated to unreasonable scales. Strictly speaking, the fact of doping in contemporary sports is not unusual and the question is: are the drugs taken by athletes of different countries to enhance performance, officially banned and what is the probability of substance detection after metabolic disintegration (metabolites). Banned in 2015, Meldonium was one of the analogous drugs which was widely used across the territories of the former USSR.
Accordingly, the attack vector (chosen by the IOC) is “the violation of anti-doping rules”, which involved the Russian “state apparatus”. A separate government agency was presumably responsible for helping athletes to hide the use of “doping” – whereas in “normal” countries specific trainers are responsible. That detail of shifting liability from particular persons to the state generally, allowed the IOC to strike a blow to all Russian athletes at once. This transfer (of responsibility) “from private – to general” combined with the propaganda, which only begun after the accession of Crimea, and the slowness of the IOC announcing the decision (as mentioned by Longmou), compels one to see political overtones in this action.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
