Bolt backs Russian athletics team’s ban

Usain Bolt has given a “thumbs up” to the decision to ban the Russian athletics team from the Rio Olympics because of widespread doping.

The IAAF, world athletics’ governing body, banned the Russian team last month and today that decision was rubber-stamped by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The Swiss-based body rejected an appeal against the hard-line IAAF stance by the Russian Olympic Committee and 68 individual athletes.

Speaking ahead of Friday’s Muller Anniversary Games in London, the 29-year-old Bolt said the situation was “sad” but the decision would send a powerful message about clean sport.

“For me, if you have the proof and you catch somebody, I definitely feel you should take action,” Jamaica’s six-time Olympic sprint champion said.

“If you feel like banning the whole team is the right action, then I’m all for it.

“Rules are rules and doping violations in track and field (are) getting really bad, so if you feel like you need to make a statement, and this is how you feel like you need to make a statement, then thumbs up.”

Double Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva told the TASS news agency that the verdict was “the funeral of track and field” and dismissed it as politically motivated.

Earlier this week, a second major WADA-funded investigation revealed that Russia’s doping was run by the Ministry of Sport, facilitated by the secret service and anti-doping set-up and encompassed almost every Olympic and Paralympic discipline.

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Official Russian reaction to the CAS decision has been defiant, with President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman telling TASS it was “hardly acceptable” and Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko calling it “biased and politicised”.

But the big question now is whether the ruling from sport’s highest court will persuade the International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee to issue a blanket ban for the entire Russian delegation in Rio.

That is what a coalition of anti-doping agencies and athletes’ groups have been calling for but the IOC said on Tuesday it needed more time to consider its options.

Its executive board is holding its second emergency meeting of the week on Sunday and has promised to make a final decision about a complete ban for the Russian team by Wednesday.

The IPC’s board is meeting tomorrow and is understood to be less reluctant than the IOC to consider such a radical and unprecedented step as throwing an entire country out for doping.