Russia "is on the brink of being thrown out of the World Para Athletics Championships in London after its effective expulsion from the International Association of Athletics Federation's version of the event," according to Ben Rumsby of the London TELEGRAPH.
Monday night saw the IAAF "extend the rogue nation’s exile from the sport for orchestrating the biggest doping scandal in history."
The Int'l Paralympic Committee "is on course to do the same before London 2017 begins."
A final decision "will not be taken" until the IPC governing board’s next meeting in May but the criteria for the lifting of the suspension imposed on the Russian Paralympic Committee last year "includes the Russian Anti-Doping Agency being declared compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code or the establishing of an equivalent approved testing agency in Russia." The earliest RUSADA is expected to be "declared compliant" with the WADA code is November, "which would rule Russia out of August’s IAAF World Championships and its IPC counterpart the previous month."
Where the two events would differ is that the IAAF will allow Russian track-and-field athletes at London 2017 "as neutrals if they are deemed to be independent of their country’s athletics system, whereas the IPC will not" (TELEGRAPH, 2/8).
CHANGE OF MIND: In London, Ziegler & Broadbent reported the head of this summer’s World Athletics Championships in London said that he now "backs Russia’s exclusion from the event because of the country’s continuing refusal to admit that it had a state-organised doping system."
London 2017 co-Chair Ed Warner said that it would have been “tawdry” if athletes representing the country had been allowed to compete. Warner said in June that it would be "unhealthy for Russia to stay banned until the championships but now accepts that the IAAF had no option" after a report on Monday from the int'l governing body's task force (LONDON TIMES, 2/8).
