British Olympic Association joins calls to ban all Russians from world stage

The British Olympic Association on Wednesday joined the fight for Russia to be exiled completely from world sport as the World Anti-Doping Agency braced itself for a legal challenge to its ban on the country.

The BOA refused to endorse Wada’s International Olympic Committee-backed four-year ban on the country hosting global sporting events or competing at them under its own flag. It did so as members of Wada’s own athlete committee were considering an appeal against the leniency of the sanction imposed over Russia’s cover-up of state-sponsored cheating at events including the London and Sochi Olympics and Paralympics.

On Monday, Wada ignored calls from half of that committee, among others, to ban all Russians from the world stage.

Sir Hugh Robertson, the BOA chairman, said: “For three consecutive Olympic Games, the matter of systemic doping of athletes by Russia has hung like a dark cloud over the entire Olympic movement.

“Our support is for the fullest possible sanctions to be taken against Russia at Tokyo 2020. At the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Games, Team GB athletes competed against a Russian team in all but name – this should not happen again.

“Our concern is that even after the sanctions in Pyeongchang, Russia continued to manipulate data and with it the outcome of sport. They have shown no contrition or respect for the Olympic movement and its athletes.”

Ben Hawes, the chairman of the BOA’s athletes’ commission, said: “Despite previous sanctions, including athletes competing under a neutral flag in Pyeongchang, Russia has continued to deny clean athletes around the world the ability to compete fairly and with any confidence in the systems designed to protect them.

“We echo the calls for stronger, robust and enforceable sanctions. If our athletes are to compete against athletes from Russia under a neutral flag at Tokyo 2020, they need to do so with undeniable proof that they are clean and not implicated with anything that brings the Olympic Movement into question or disrepute.”

The threat of a Russian boycott of next summer’s Olympics was also raised on Wednesday when the general secretary of the country’s boxing federation announced its fighters would only take part if sanctions forcing them to compete as neutrals were overturned.

Umar Kremlev said he has spoken with Russia’s Olympic boxing team and they “unanimously” rejected the conditions laid out by Wada as punishment for falsifying doping data.

“They said we won’t go without our flag and anthem,” Kremlev said. “We aren’t going for medals, but for that feeling that I brought the highest honour home for my country.”

Kremlev said boxers were being asked to shoulder the blame for offences committed in other sports, adding: “If other sports are guilty and people have breached the Wada code, why are we punished?”

Separately, the speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament said the country could create an alternative to the Olympics.

“This ruling shows the clear crisis in international sports institutions. I believe that Russia could host its own games at home,” Valentina Matvienko said in comments reported by the Interfax news agency.

It would not be the first time, with the Soviet Union refusing to compete in the Olympics after the Russian Revolution of 1917 and instead hosting its own Spartakiads – named after the ancient rebel slave Spartacus.