Russia banned from the 2018 Olympic games by the IOC

On Tuesday, December 5, 2017 the IOC officially banned Russia from competing at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic games. In previous blog posts in July 2016, I recapped some of the history of Russian doping over the past few years. The Russian Track and Field team is still banned from international competition by the IAAF and has been since November 2015. During the 2014 Sochi games, several Russian winter Olympic athletes cheated when they falsely competed as clean athletes because the Russian government devised a scheme to exchange positive doping samples with clean ones. The Russian Anti Doping Agency was discredited as they did not report these tainted samples from these athletes.

Over the past several months, investigations of Russian systematic state sponsored doping have mostly concluded. As of this posting, 43 athletes have been banned from the Sochi Olympics (some for life) and 13 Russian medals have been stripped. Vitaly Mutko, who was the Russian Sports Minister during the Sochi games was fined 15 million dollars and banned for life and the Russian Olympic Committee has been suspended. Russian government officials (including Vladimir Putin) deny any state sponsored doping to date. Several Russian athletes who were banned have appealed the IOC's decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. That decision is pending.

The IOC has ruled that Russian athletes can compete as "Olympic Athletes from Russia". They cannot compete under the Russian flag. If these athletes win a medal, the Russian anthem will not be played. The uniforms the Russians wear has to be different from the uniforms they would wear if they were competing under the Russian flag. This includes having the smaller size word "Russia" underneath the words Olympic Athlete From. The term "OAR" must be used and can have only have one or two colors while the Russian flag has three colors. Over 200 athletes could compete under OAR but the IOC will screen them based on their doping history.

The IOC could lift the ban on Russia by the closing ceremony of the Pyeongchang games on February 25, 2018 if they adhere to IOC conditions. If the ban is lifted, OAR athletes could march under their own flag at the closing ceremony.

An updated medal count from the Sochi games would have the USA leading the medal count with 28 total medals and Russia would be in fifth place with 20 total medals. The 13 Russian medals that were stripped have yet to be re-allocated to other nations.