Russia must be exiled from world sport

Russia has robbed elite Aussie athletes of their moment of glory for too long, and they will continue to do so unless the World Anti-Doping Agency throws them out of competition, writes Selina Steele.

Bronwyn Thompson came 4th in long jump at the Athens Olympics … and all three Russians before her later tested positive for drugs. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Total exile and nothing less.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) meet in Lausanne on Monday night to rule on Russia’s sporting fate after the country’s ongoing cover-up of sport’s worst drugs scandal.

WADA’s executive committee are considering recommendations that Russia be banned for four years from hosting global sporting events or competing at them under their own flag after its shameful act of falsifying lab data linked to cheating at the London and Sochi Olympics and Paralympics.

The most likely overnight result is Russia will be spared total exile from world sport.

There will be sanctions but not a complete ban on Russian participation – but let’s be clear, the systematic state sponsored cheating by Russia has been going on for decades.

In fact countries, coaches and athletes will continue to invest in drug cheating until individual governments enact legislative powers to jail the cheats.

To combat this, WADA must get tougher – total exile from all international sport and nothing less.

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The man behind bringing down Lance Armstrong – chief executive of US Anti-Doping Agency Travis Tygart – said “Russia will continue to flaunt the world’s anti-doping rules, kick clean athletes in the gut and poke WADA in the eye and get away with it time and again … WADA must get tougher and impose the full restriction on Russian athlete participation in the Olympics that the rules allow.”

Bronwyn Thompson in action during the long jump final at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004. Picture: Mark Dadswell/Getty Images

Long jumper Bronwyn Thompson is one of those athletes kicked in the guts.

Thompson, a Brisbane physiotherapist, finished fourth in Athens behind three Russian athletes who all tested positive for performance enhancing drug offences within the four-year post-Games period.

It should have been the greatest night of her sporting career.

Instead, Thompson and most of the athletics community – including this reporter – had suspected for 15 years that she had been cheated out of gold.

And it’s a misjustice Thompson, her former coach Gary Bourne and myself have been trying to rectify.

In 2017, I broke the story that Athletics Australia would take up Thompson’s fight with the sport’s governing body, the IAAF.

It took a long time for the doping allegations against Lance Armstrong to come out. Picture: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

At the time, Athletics Australia’s interim CEO Michael Hall said: “Bronwyn’s request for an inquiry into the outcome of the women’s long jump final at Athens 2004 is one Athletics Australia wholeheartedly supports.”

“Athletics Australia believe that Bronwyn has a claim for the gold medal, but to ensure a resolution for this injustice we must secure the support of the governing body for the sport.

“It is our intention to make every effort to do so.

“A level playing field for all athletes, protecting clean athletes from the scourge of doping, is critical and Athletics Australia will continue making every effort to ensure this outcome not only for Australian athletes, but for all those who take to the field of play to compete.”

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Great Britain’s Jade Johnson (6th in Athens) and Anju Bobby-George from India (5th in Athens), have also called on their national federations and the IAAF to reallocate the 2004 Olympic long jump medals.

Athlete Marion Jones holds up her five Olympic medals for track and field events from the Sydney 2000 Olympics. The stripping of her medals set an international precedent.

At the 2018 Commonwealth Games, I made repeated requests to discuss the matter with IAAF President Sebastian Coe.

My requests were denied.

Surely – with Russia now facing extended exile, if not from world sport but from the Olympic movement – the likes of Coe and Co. will listen.

This matter shouldn’t fall between the cracks of an overly bureaucratic IAAF – or a perhaps not vocal enough AA.

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There is international precedence for Olympic medals to be stripped in disgraced sprinter Marion Jones and cyclist Lance Armstrong. Both never returned a positive drug test at an Olympics but were retrospectively stripped of their medals.

In recent years, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has stripped medals from drug cheats and reallocated them.

Australian walker Jared Tallent was elevated to gold when Russian Sergey Kirdyapkin was stripped of his 2012 Olympic gold medal.

In addition to the IOC, the international governing body of each Olympic sport also has the authority to strip medals – in Thompson’s case, the IAAF.

Thompson, now a mother of four, said: “We may not change the outcome but we have to try.”

And try we must because clean athletes like Thompson deserve their medal, deserve to be supported and the sport itself deserves integrity to be returned.

Selina Steele is former Sports Editor of The Sunday Mail in Brisbane, Sports Editor of the Gold Coast Bulletin, has covered Olympic and Commonwealth Games and is the current News Corp Deputy Editor of National News.