Russians are not coming

The Court of Arbitration for Sport, the final arbiter in most sporting matters, has ruled that Russian track and field athletes cannot compete in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, which begin in a fortnight. It is a pity it has come to this because the ban will take a lot of shine off medals won in the extremely competitive Olympics. But then the virtual state-sponsored doping programme, suspected to have been running behind the Iron Curtain for decades and which now is mostly to be found in Russia, militates against the very spirit of sports. Doping is a negation of all principles of fair play as athletes tend to derive an advantage at the cost of opponents. Detection of doping may take place well after the event, by when all the glory would have gone already to the cheat.

As much as WADA fights doping by keeping up to date with the science behind detection, the athletes always seem to be a step ahead. In fact, the cheating is also very refined and samples are also tampered with, sometimes switched cleverly as the Russian secret service was said to have done to help their athletes in the 2013 world athletics championship in Moscow. The Russians are not the only cheats, as the world well knows. The athletes banned may not even be in the same category as the East Germans, once the last word in state-sponsored doping. But a whistle-blower official and athlete put paid to state secrets. The IOC is to take a final call, but it does appear we will have Olympic track and field competitions without the Russians.