Competitions for the Russian Para athletes, who have been banned from the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio, will be held at the beginning of September before the start of the Paralympic tournaments in Rio, Vladimir Lukin, the president of the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) to the Moscow Echo radio on Friday, TASS reported.
"We won’t be able to attach international status to these competitions because they will be held immediately in the run-up to the Games," Lukin said. "Still we hope we’ll be no need to organize them, as our Para athletes will eventually perform at the Games."
"But if this doesn’t happen, the competitions will be held ahead of the Games in early September," he said.
Earlier, the President of Russia Vladimir Putin said at a meeting in the Kremlin with the winners of the 2016 Olympics that Russia will organize alternative competitions for local athletes with disabilities who have been denied participation in the Paralympics in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.
Recall that on Tuesday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissed the appeal filed by the Russian Paralympic Committee against the decision to ban Russian athletes from next month’s Paralympic Games in Rio.
"The CAS Panel in charge of this matter found that the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) did not violate any procedural rule in dealing with the disciplinary process leading to the RPC’s suspension and that the decision to ban the RPC was made in accordance with the IPC Rules and was proportionate in the circumstances," the statement said.
The Panel noted that "the RPC did not file any evidence contradicting the facts the IPC decision was based on," it said. The RPC sent an appeal to the CAS on August 15, TASS writes.
