Olympics, Russia ban: Australians warned not to protest in Tokyo

The Australian Olympic Committee has launched a scathing attack on Russia’s blatant abuse of performance enhancing drugs – but delivered a blunt messages to athletes considering ‘doing a Horton’.

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Aussie athletes will be warned just to cop it sweet and not ‘do a Mack Horton’ if they feel they’ve been swindled out of gold by a Russian at next year’s Tokyo Olympics.

That’s the blunt message the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) will be telling members of the Aussie team that may want to protest against Russian athletes that win medals in Japan.

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Mack Horton (L) famously took a stand against China drug cheat Sun Yang at the 2019 swimming world championships. Picture: AFP

The AOC has launched a scathing attack on Russia’s blatant abuse of performance enhancing drugs and vowed not to stop Aussie athletes from speaking out themselves, but will tell them not to protest at medal ceremonies.

“The advice that we’ll give all athletes is that there’s an appropriate time to protest and there’s times that aren’t appropriate,” AOC vice president Ian Chesterman said.

“Clearly, we will be saying the podium is not a place to protest because the Olympic guidelines are very clear on that and an athlete takes the risk that they’ll be stripped of their medal.”

Horton escaped with a warning but was allowed to keep his silver medal after he protested at the decision to let China’s Sun Yang compete at this year’s world swimming championships in South Korea before the appeal into his latest doping case had been settled.

China's Sun Yang was allowed to compete before his latest doping case had been settled. Picture: AFP

Horton has been hailed as a hero by other frustrated swimmers who feel emboldened by his brave stance but Chesterman said athletes need to find a different way of venting their anger because the repercussions for demonstrating at Olympic medal ceremonies were so severe.

“Everyone might have a beef with somebody based on something so we’re saying the podium is not a place to protest,” he said.

“If you have a view, then you’re entitled to make that view and you won’t find me trying to stop them making these views at the appropriate place.”

While the AOC has strongly backed the recommendation from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to ban Russia from major international competitions for four years as a big win for clean sport, plenty of others believe the penalties don’t go far enough.

Russia has been punished for blatant use of performance-enhancing drugs. Picture; AFP

Unless Russia succeeds in winning an appeal against the ruling, there will be no official Russian team at Tokyo, meaning no flag, no anthem and no recognition on the medals table.

But Russian athletes will still be allowed to compete as individuals as long as they can prove they were not part of the state-sponsored doping system and Chesterman said they should be given the benefit of the doubt.

“At the moment all Russian athletes are banned until they can prove their innocence and there’s a lot of hurdles to jump over,” he said.

“Everyone will take their own feelings forward and there’s a lot of anger in the world with what’s happened with Russia and their abuse of the anti doping system but our judicial system says you don’t punish the innocent the innocent to punish the guilty.

“It's obvious the Russians have been involved in systematic cheating of the system and world sport needs to stand up and I think it’s a very strong penalty.

“Four years is a very long time, four years is a good ban, I think it’s an appropriate ban. I think WADA had to be seen to be doing something strong and they have done something strong.”