US lawyer Jim Walden calls for Russia to banned from Olympics
On the eve of the World Anti-Doping Agency announcing its sanctions on Russia for doping their athletes, the lawyer for the man who blew the whistle has called for them to be banned from future Olympics. LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW
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The lawyer who represents the biggest whistleblower in the history of sport says Russia should be kicked out of the Tokyo Olympics and hit with an unprecedented worldwide ban from all sports that includes no fixed return date.
US lawyer Jim Walden has also declared that athletes, coaches and countries will continue to invest in drug-cheating and deceiving anti-doping agencies unless individual government’s enact legislative powers to jail the fraudsters.
Walden represents Russian whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, who remains in-hiding in the US.
Walden’s claims have emerged as the glare of the sporting world bears down on Russia and the much-anticipated announcement of their penalty for a second major doping scandal in three years.
WADA – World Anti-Doping Agency – are expected to drop a hammer blow on the sporting powerhouse by not only banning the Russian delegation from the Tokyo games next year, but also the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
It’s likely that Russia would also be banned from hosting or bidding to host international meets and using the national flag for the next four years.
But it’s not long enough, according to Walden.
“The only outcome that will deter Russia’s corruption is an outright ban,’’ Walden told The Sunday Telegraph.
“I think their system needs to be completely overhauled and I think there is virtually no possibility that there’s going to be meaningful reform in four years.
“I don’t know if there’s a historical precedent for an unlimited ban.
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“But if ever there was a time where an unlimited ban was appropriate, now is the time.
“Russia has just shown in every possibly way, no matter how many times they are given a second chance, they are going to revert to deception and corruption.
“Until there is a time that they can prove, they meaningfully instituted top-down reform and that there is a new culture of compliance they really should not be trusted to re-join the international sporting community.’’
Walden said the depth of Russia’s deceit indicated that WADA was powerless to eradicate doping in sport.
“I think the international system has proved toothless to combat doping,’’ Walden said.
“And every day in our world, clean athletes are defrauded by athletes and coaches and government officials, who are intent on cheating and intent on avoiding detection.
“And until the international community starts taking this seriously and putting people behind bars, it’s going to continue because there’s a powerful incentive both financial and reputational for people to stand on the podium.
“If you really care about clean athletes and you really care about fairness in sports, the only way to deter the fraudsters is to put them behind bars, where they belong.’’
Russia have been in the sights of WADA after they discovered a number of positive drug tests were deleted from a database sent to the world’s antidoping regulator during the same period it investigated Russia for one of the biggest cheating scandals in international sport history.
Russia’s promise to deliver a database of thousands of athlete records was a key factor in WADA’s decision to lift an original ban on the country’s antidoping agency (RUSADA) in late 2018.
However, a WADA investigative team had found inconsistencies between a data set passed to it by a whistleblower in 2017 and the tests extracted from the Moscow laboratory in January.
That whistleblower is believed to be the former head of Russia’s national anti-doping laboratory, Rodchenkov.
Rodchenkov’s laboratory was suspended by WADA in November 2015 for facilitating Russia’s elaborate state-sponsored doping program.
In the Oscar award-winning Netflix documentary, Icarus, Rodchenkov revealed explosive evidence of the entire drug-cheating operation which allowed him to distribute banned performance-enhancing substances for thousands of Russian Olympians from 2005 to 2015.
Rodchenkov has spent the past two years in witness protection in the US, with Walden confirming that his 61-year-old client would likely be killed, if he returned to his family and home in Russia.
“I can’t talk to you about where he (Rodchenkov) is – but I do speak to him frequently. He’s in great spirits,’’ Walden said.
“He’s continuing to co-operate with WADA’s investigators, the IAAF (World Athletics) and a number of sporting organisations as they pursue cases against dirty athletes.
“And his co-operation is going to continue for quite some time until he feels as though he has helped atone for the system he found himself in.
“And until he has helped bring on a dawn of a new day for clean-sport.
“I think he misses his family quite a bit.
“But certainly he understands that had he made a different decision, he’d be dead.
“And his family might have been further harmed as well.
“So I think, as sad as he is, he’s at peace with the decision that he made, was the best decision possible in the circumstances for him and his family.’’
Asked if he believes Rodcenkov will ever be able to return to Russia, Walden said: “Once there is an end to the Russian gangster state, I’m hoping that he’ll be welcomed back.
“But as long as Putin and his cronies are in power, it would be unwise for him to ever seek to go back.’’
Originally published as US lawyer Jim Walden calls for Russia to banned from Olympics
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