«Russia never had and never will have state supported doping system»

Tomorrow, the final composition of the Russian Olympic team will be formed. "Overall, we have a good team, about 272 people ... We are able to compete in 19-20 sports," Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said. Recall that the independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) presented a report on the results of the investigations into allegations of doping machinations at the Olympic Games 2014 in Sochi, but the IOC decided not to ban the entire Russian national team from participating in the Olympics. Only those who were ever caught using doping will be unable to go.

Yesterday, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) did not deem it necessary to review the decision on a ban on two-time Olympic champion in the pole vault, Yelena Isinbayeva. Russian weightlifters were also suspended. The coach of the Russian national weightlifting team, David Rigert, described this decision by the IWF as "real banditry".

Yelena Isinbayeva

However, Russia understands that its athletes are not sinless. Honorary member of the International Olympic Committee Vitaly Smirnov said that the independent public commission of the Russian Olympic Committee on anti-doping includes respected Russian public and sports figures, experts in the fields of medicine and law. "We are also open for cooperation and ready to take any recommendation of the IOC on inclusion of any candidates. We welcome the presence of WADA and any other international sports organizations on this commission. This commission is public and independent. We fight against any attempts by government and other structures to influence its work. Russia never had and never will have a state-supported doping system. Sports must be clean and fair. Everything should be transparent," the expert said.

According to Smirnov, "over the past years Russia has done a lot to build an anti-doping system, which was approved by corresponding international sports organizations. This system failed. A man who, in our opinion, treads a criminal path, took advantage of it. There were other violations. No system is perfect. It must be constantly improved. One of the main tasks of this commission is to prepare a national anti-doping program, making Russian sports clean and transparent, as well as bringing back the trust of the international Olympic movement."

Smirnov believes that the mechanism, whereby various agencies are responsible for state policy in the field of doping and athletes' health, is ineffective: 'We believe that the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation should be the only institution that deals with the anti-doping policy. The problem of doping exists not only in Russia, and we must fight against this evil together, uniting our efforts. We are ready to build a completely transparent independent system in our country, but only if a similar system is created everywhere. The principle of equality between members of the Olympic family must prevail here."

As for a situation in which politics interferes in sports, according to Smirnov, as history shows, it has never led to positive results: "Sports have often helped to ease international tensions. I was one of the organizers of the Olympics in Moscow. It was a mistake that many countries succumbed to pressure on the Soviet Union and refused to participate. Including Germany. But Britain withstood. The President of the British Olympic Association withstood the pressure from Mrs. Thatcher and they sent the national team. We did not go to the Olympics in 1984, and this was also a mistake. There are a lot of examples when sports showed that athletes from countries with different political systems can cooperate and coexist. Just remember the series of brilliant US-Russia matches in 'Luzhniki'. We are not trying to politicize sports, although it can't exist without politics."