Nigeria's athletics team to the Rio Olympics in Brazil will
surely have other teams to battle with in their quest for medals, but certainly
not Russia.
This follows the extension of ban on Russia's track and
field team by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF)
over doping offences
IAAF met Friday and voted unanimously to maintain the ban on
Russia in international competition that it initially set in motion last
November. The athletics body insisted that Russia did not meet the criteria for
readmission that were established at the time of the ban.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will however
decide Tuesday whether any individual athletes who don’t have a history of drug
violations will be excluded from the ban.
In a swift reaction, Russian President Vladimir Putin said
clean athletes should not be punished because others have been caught doping.
"There cannot be collective responsibility for all
athletes or athletes of one federation if someone has been caught doping,” he
said.
Blessing Okagbare is leading a battery of Nigerian athletes
to the African Athletics Championship billed for Durban South Africa from June
22dnd to 26th as part of the preparation for the forth coming Olympics
Meanwhile Russia's two-time Olympic pole vault champion
Yelena Isinbayeva has said that IAAF's decision to place a ban on Russian
athletes over alleged violation of anti-doping rules is “discrimination on
national grounds." The sportswoman vowed to appeal to a human rights
court.
The Council of the International Association of Athletics
Federations' (IAAF) suspension "is a violation of human rights,"
Isinbayeva told TASS news agency on Friday. "I will not keep silent, I
will take measures. I will go to the court of human rights. I will prove IAAF
and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that they've made a wrong
decision."
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