UNESCO stands against collective punishment over individual doping abuse in sports

MOSCOW, May 4. /TASS/. UNESCO speaks for the inadmissibility of the collective punishment principle in sports in case certain athletes violate anti-doping regulations, the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) said in its statement on Thursday. ROC President Alexander Zhukov held a meeting with a delegation from UNESCO on May 3 in Moscow. The aim of the delegation’s visit to Russia was to evaluate the implementation of UNESCO’s Convention on the fight against doping in sports and to assess the development of the anti-doping policy in Russia. Zhukov told UNESCO representatives about Russia’s measures aimed at the eradication of performance abuse drugs abuse in sports. He described in detail the recently passed legislative acts, which toughens responsibility for the encouragement into doping abuse, as well as other measures aimed at preventing banned substances in sports. "UNESCO representatives stated the necessity of uniting efforts on behalf of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the signatory countries to the UNESCO Convention at the issue in order to further develop the world anti-doping system," the statement from the ROC said. "Both sides agreed on the necessity of introducing to the text of the Convention a set of provisions on the inadmissibility of the collective punishment over anti-doping violations by individual athletes and on the protection of clean athletes’ interests," the statement added. Last year, a significant number of Russian athletes were banned from taking part in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro following a report from the WADA Independent Commission and its chairman, Canadian sports law professor Richard McLaren. In particular, the whole Russian national track and field team was barred from the Rio-2016 Games, except for long jumper Daria Klishina, who had been living and training outside her country. In the further development of events, the whole national team of Russia was suspended from taking part in the 2016 Summer Paralympic Games. Read more