MOSCOW (Sputnik) — It is unacceptable to ban clean athletes from the Olympic Games without evidence, Russian Minister of Sport Pavel Kolobkov said Monday.
"Barring clean athletes from the Olympics without any real evidence is unacceptable. These issues should be addressed in conjunction with international organizations," Kolobkov told R-Sport.
He added that the last year was rather difficult, stressing that many Russian, especially Paralympic, athletes had been unfairly dismissed from the competitions.
The Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) is open to restore communication with its international counterpart on reinstatement prior to the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in South Korea, the minister said.
"The IPC [International Paralympic Committee] is doing its utmost, but unfortunately there is no reciprocal movement from the IPC yet. At the same time, we still hope to establish contact in the near future," Kolobkov told R-sport.
Kolobkov noted that "there is still time" for Russian Paralympians to compete in Pyeongchang next year.
"Work is carried out on a daily basis, a great number of meetings are held, there is an active correspondence. But if we see full openness and readiness to cooperate from RPC, then unfortunately the IPC is not always ready to quickly resolve this or that issue," he said.
"I am ready to say with absolute certainty that we will be competitive in nearly every event. Of course we will seek to repeat the Sochi-2014 result," Kolobkov added. "I look at the performance in [South] Korea with optimism."
The dismissals have been happening amid a doping scandal, simmering since 2014, which broke out in July 2016 when the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) independent commission headed by Richard McLaren presented a report accusing Russia of running a state-wide doping program and urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to consider a blanket ban on the entire Russian Olympic team. The IOC instead let individual sports federations act on the issue.
On December 9, 2016, the WADA issued the second part of the report on alleged Russian doping abuse, revealing alleged manipulations by athletes in 30 disciplines.
