Kremlin comments 2018 Olympic ban against Russia

The Kremlin has urged to keep down emotions over the IOC’s decision to ban Russia from the Olympic Games in South Korea’s Pyeongchang in 2018.

Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the decisions taken by the IOC on Russia should be thoroughly analyzed "before making any accusations on this account".

The spokesman also noted that Russia is going to contact the IOC over the decision to bar its team from the 2018 Winter Olympics.

"In any case, we are to get answers to a number of questions. Contacts with the IOC will be required for this. Now it is to be determined who will carry out these contacts and how. A number of other technical issues are to be cleared up, too," TASS cited Peskov as saying.

Russia was banned Tuesday from the 2018 Winter Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over its state-orchestrated doping programme, but clean Russian athletes will be allowed to compete under an Olympic flag.

The President of All-Russian and European Sambo Federation Sergey Yeliseyev noted, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, that the IOC has undermined the very idea of ​​the Olympic movement. "When a person spends his whole life trying to get to the Olympics, and then it turns out that it does not depend on him, it becomes clear that the international Olympic movement has burst. Today we were put in such a situation that there are no common rules, as some people are checked any number of times, until others are not checked. For today, the international Olympic movement has died, and it is necessary to build a new one," he stressed.

"It is necessary to unite people, countries and sports under a new movement that will really satisfy the requirements of equal opportunities and rights. Now it turns out that Russians have no rights, because the athletes were divided into those who wanted and unwanted. My decision is that it is necessary create a new international Olympic movement," Sergey Yeliseyev urged.