May 28, 2016 – Despite mounting evidence and allegations of doping it seems unlikely that world sporting authorities will prevent Russian athletes from competing at the Rio 2016 Games says Alan Abrahamson in a 3WireSports report.

This follows a scathing article in The New York Times by Grigoriy Rodchenkov, former director of the Sochi 2014 anti-doping lab, about how positive test results were turned negative on a large scale, implicating Russian authorities as well and casting suspicion on their 33 medals in Sochi.

Abrahamson’s 2,600-word article quotes a WADA report chaired by Canadian Dick Pound that claim, “Rodchenkov’s statements regarding the destruction of [1,417] samples are not credible.” In addition, “There is insufficient evidence to support the figure of 99 percent of members of the Russian national [track and field] team as dopers.”

Add to this that many of the positive doping results for Russian athletes now appear to involve meldonium — a substance only banned early in 2016 and about which even WADA has already changed its guidelines.

WADA is cited again saying, “… Russia is not the only country, nor athletics the only sport, facing the problem of orchestrated doping in sport.”

On the subject of systemic doping on a massive scale, Abrahamson points to Lance Armstrong and the U.S. Postal Team noting the complexity and nuances of this issue, and asks why nobody is suggesting that the US cycling team be banned from the Rio Olympics.

Meanwhile an open letter signed by 150 top scientists and medical health officials is calling for this summer’s Rio Olympic Games to be moved or postponed because of the potential Zika outbreak reports BBC. Yet the World Health Organization (WHO) has rejected this movement.

“An unnecessary risk is posed when 500,000 foreign tourists from all countries attend the Games, potentially acquire that strain, and return home to places where it can become endemic,” reads part of the open letter, referring to the mosquito-borne Zika Virus.

But WHO claims that postponing or moving the Olympics will “not significantly alter” the spread of the virus. Also, Dr. Tom Frieden, head of the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), says: “There is no public health reason to cancel or delay the Olympics.” Frieden urged his government, however, to act more quickly to prevent pregnant women contracting Zika and to release of $1.9 billion in funding.

The virus has been spreading rapidly through much of Latin America with Brazil reporting 91,387 likely cases between February and April of this year. While symptoms of Zika can be mild, it can lead to birth defects and Brazil’s number of babies born with Zika-linked defects stood at 4,908 in April.

Scientists point to precedents of cancelled Games: “The 1916, 1940, and 1944 Olympic Games were not just postponed or moved, but cancelled. Other sporting events were moved because of disease, as Major League Baseball did for Zika, and the Africa Cup of Nations did for Ebola. FIFA moved the 2003 Women’s World Cup from China to the USA because of the SARS epidemic.”

The Rio Olympics are scheduled from Aug. 5–21  while the 2016 Summer Paralympics are scheduled from Sept 7-18, also in Rio.

BBC here.
Letter by 150 scientists here.
Abrahamson on the Russians here.