© Ramil Sitdikov / Sputnik
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich says he believes that by banning leading Russian athletes from PyeongChang 2018 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is "creating good conditions for other athletes."
The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) initially included 500 athletes in its Olympic application for participation at February's PyeongChang Winter Games, which was sent to the IOC last week. The IOC's Invitation Review Panel, responsible for approving athletes, excluded 111 members, who in its view failed to meet the requirements for competition.
On Tuesday, it became known that several high-profile Russian athletes, including Olympic biathlon champion Anton Shipulin, world champion cross country skier Sergey Ustiugov, and six-time Olympic gold medal-winning short track skater Viktor Ahn, had not been declared eligible to participate in the upcoming Games, despite their clean doping record.
RT met with economist and Deputy Prime Minister Dvorkovich, a member of the Russian delegation at the 2018 Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to gain his views on the athletes' exclusion.
Comment: A number of former hockey players from the West have
commented on the ban as well, pointing out the unfairness of banning players when it is so close to the Olympics and the unfair practice of banning an entire country because of a few athletes who dope. As former hockey coach Scott MacPherson put it:
"You know the Russian hockey team, and I'm talking about it because I'm a hockey person, the players that are on the Russian team are guys that we've played against from the time when we were little kids. We know that they are clean. Unfortunately politics seems to be slipping into athletics and that's really not good. The people that are caught should be prevented from participating, but the people that are clean [should be allowed to compete]. It's an individual decision to use drugs and dope, just like it is in society. Somebody works at a prominent Fortune 500 company and somebody in the office is doing cocaine. Not everyone in the office gets penalized. It is done on the individual bases."
Six-time Olympic champion speed skater Viktor Ahn
wrote an open letter to the IOC asking for an explanation on the decision to ban him without any concrete evidence:
"It is outrageous that there is no concrete reason which explains my exclusion from the Olympics, and furthermore people now view me as an athlete who used doping. After all these years in sports, this verdict of preventing me to be in the Olympics has become a symbol of mistrust to me from the side of the IOC as well as the reason of mistrust from the side of the entire sport community.
Comment: Previously: