Many fewer doping cases in Paralympic team than in Olympic team

On Sunday, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) decided to suspend the Russian athletes from the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. Now the Russian Paralympic Committee (RCC), in conjunction with the IPC, is developing an agreement to speed up the procedure in the Paralympics Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) regarding the ban on Russian Paralympians from participating in the Rio Paralympics.

"We are connected by formal relations with government organizations, the center for national teams, the Ministry of Sports. The Russian Paralympic Committee has carried out all the preparation and organization on its own for many years. We don't hold training camps and competitions together with our Olympic teams. In addition, the Russian Paralympic Committee set strict rules for prosecuting those athletes whose coaches admit the use of performance-enhancing drugs," the Chairman of the Executive Committee, the RCC First Vice-President and chief of the Russian national team's mission at the 15th Summer Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Pavel Rozhkov, explained.

According to him, there are far fewer doping cases in the Paralympic national team than in the Olympic team. "Even when they detect 20-35 cases, they are not divided into sports like in the case with Olympic team, but are listed as athletes. The Executive Committee of the International Paralympic Committee has paid attention to the issue of whether the Russian Paralympic Committee can ensure that the athletes who will participate in the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro are really 'clean'. We submitted documents confirming that our athletes are only tested by foreign anti-doping agencies. In addition, 76 of our athletes are under constant supervision by the ADAMS system. We had no violations in the sample collection of those athletes in the ADAMS system. The Executive Committee of the International Paralympic Committee was satisfied with our answer," Pavel Rozhkov said.

With regard to the judicial perspective, he hopes that the applications that the Russian Paralympic Committee will submit in the near future will be met, and the Russian Paralympic team will be able to take part in the Games. "Therefore, we didn't interrupt the process of preparing our athletes, all 18 national teams continue their training at the bases, mostly in Moscow, the Moscow region and Sochi. The athletes are training with an understanding, the coaches try to limit any negative information which may affect their emotional background and their desire to train. All our athletes hope that the truth will prevail," Rozhkov said.