5. Collective Punishment

WADA, IPC, IAAF

https://www.paralympic.org/news/ipc-suspends-russian-paralympic-committee-immediate-effect  “I believe the Russian government has catastrophically failed its Para athletes. Their medals over morals mentality disgusts me. The complete corruption of the anti-doping system is contrary to the rules and strikes at the very heart of the spirit of Paralympic sport. It shows a blatant disregard for the health and well-being of athletes and, quite simply, has no place in Paralympic sport. Their thirst for glory at all costs has severely damaged the integrity and image of all sport, and has certainly resulted in a devastating outcome for the Russian Paralympic Committee and Para athletes. 

ICrpt1 p32 [Chapter 20] WADA has been effective in changing the focus of anti-doping programs to that of protecting the clean athletes

Critique

https://openparachute.wordpress.com/2016/08/07/34384/ Ethics and the doping scandal – a response to Guest Work – Ken Perrott – Punishing clean athletes for the crimes of those who used doping is simply collective punishment. It brings to mind the actions of Nazi occupiers in Eastern Europe who killed innocent villagers (or in some cases killed entire villages) as collective punishment for the actions of partisans. For the life of me, I cannot see how those critics who believe that the entire Russian Olympic Team should have been punished for the (as yet unproven) crimes of some officials consider they occupy the “moral high ground” as Culpan appears to argue.

http://m.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/08/19/russians-held-to-different-standards.html Michael Averko Only now, does Coe speak of having the Russian track and field team reinstated sooner rather than later. This one time world record holder in the 800 and 1500 meters eloquently spoke out against boycotting the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics where he competed. By denying the clean Russian track and field athletes a Rio Olympics entry, Coe knows better than anyone the damage he has done to them .Coe/IAAF didn’t give the clean Russian track and field athletes ample enough notice on the dubiously revised standard of needing to train outside Russia for an extended period for Olympic track and field consideration. Never minding that drug cheats can and have existed outside Russia. For Coe, she’s the better example of what a Russian athlete should be unlike Yelena Isinbayeva, Sergey Shubenkov, Maria Kuchina, Sergey Litvinov and the other clean Russian track and field athletes, who steadfastly claim innocence with no evidence against them. There are also problems with the list of “implicated” Russian athletes not named in McLaren’s report but provided to the sporting federations by McLaren. The Australian cites a senior sports official as saying “We were asked to make a judgment about Russian competitors based on McLaren’s report but without having any of the detail to understand the significance of them being named.” The IOC is obviously right to complain that it should not have been asked to make a decision on the basis of an incomplete report provided just 2 weeks before the Games in Rio were due to begin.

Mark:  a letter to the IOC urging a complete ban of Russian athletes at the Olympics in Rio actually was sent before the McLaren Report even came out. It was drafted by our old American friend Travis T. Tygart, and his Canadian counterpart. Tygart also served as USADA’s Director of Legal Affairs and General Counsel, so an argument that he did not know what he was doing should be a non-starter. I notice in a recent case of doping in the USA, USADA cut the athlete’s suspension in half based on her argument that “she used the substance with a prescription under the care of a licensed physician for therapeutic purposes and without the intent to enhance her athletic performance.”