Russia Banned from Tokyo Olympics 2020

The Russian flag and the Russian national anthem have been banned from next year’s Tokyo Olympics after the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) banned the country for four years for interfering with the results in the Moscow laboratory database. Russia’s chances of hosting any world championships in the Olympics sports is in doubt as well till the ban is not lifted. It, however, is unclear on whether Russia can take part in the football World Cup.

The Russian athletes will be allowed to participate in the major events only if their doping results were not manipulated by the Russian body, the WADA said in a statement.

Evidence showed that the authorities from Russia tampered with the database in a lab in Moscow to hide hundreds of doping cases by their athletes. The manipulation and the interference in the doping database was an insult to the people who are trying their level best to ensure that the sporting realm is clean and fair to all, the International Olympic Association stated.

The move to ban Russia frustrated Linda Helleland, who serves on the WADA executive committee, but stated that they had no other option.

“This is the biggest sports scandal the world has ever seen. I would expect now full admission from the Russians and for them to apologize on all the pain all the athletes and sports fans have experienced.

Handing over a clean database to WADA was a key requirement for Russia to help bring closure to a scandal that has tainted the Olympics over the last decade.

Although the IOC has called for the strongest possible sanctions, it wants those sanctions directed at Russian state authorities rather than athletes or Olympic officials.

That position was opposed by most of WADA’s athlete commission. It wanted the kind of blanket ban Russia avoided for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games after a state-run doping program was exposed by media and WADA investigations after Russia hosted the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.

This entire fiasco created by Russia has cheated far too many athletes of their dreams and rightful careers, for far too long,” she said.

Russia is expected to appeal against the ruling.