Russia faces Rio Olympics ban

Unpublished
LONDON - The entire Russian Olympic team will today be banned from competing at the Rio Games next month, The Mail on Sunday weekly has reported. According to well-placed sources, the International Olympic Committee will punish all 387 Russian sportsmen and women in the strongest possible way after revelations of their country’s state-sponsored doping programme shocked the world. The country’s corrupt track and field stars have already been banned from the Games, and last week lost a desperate legal challenge to overturn that decision. But today’s ruling – the most momentous in Olympic history – will see Russia’s medal hopes in cycling, judo, wrestling and all other disciplines excluded from competition in the wake of the scandal. The controversy involved President Vladimir Putin’s sports ministry handing out cocktails of steroids and covering up tainted urine samples ahead of the 2012 London Olympics. As well as excluding Russian athletes from the forthcoming Games, senior IOC figures are also advocating a ban for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. An Olympic insider told the MoS: ‘The IOC want to ban Russia to show [doping] is an assault on the whole of sport. (FA)

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