Whistleblower Yulia Stepanova calls Olympic ban 'unfair'

Whistleblower Yulia Stepanova, who helped uncover the biggest doping scandal in decades which threatened to exclude Russia from the Olympics, asked on Monday for a review of her ban from the Rio Games in a last-ditch attempt to compete there.

Stepanova's hopes of running in Rio next month as an independent athlete where dashed when the International Olympic Committee ruled on Sunday that no Russian with a doping background could take part.
 
In a statement issued by Stepanova and her husband Vitaly Stepanov, however, they said they had written to the IOC asking for a review, 10 days before the start of the Games in the Brazilian metropolis.
 
"The decision is unfair [and] based on wrong and untrue statements," they said. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) praised her contribution to the fight against doping and cleared her to compete as a neutral athlete.
 
The IOC invited the middle-distance runner and her husband to attend next month's Games as guests but denied her a competitive spot in Rio, arguing her doping-tainted past made her ineligible.

"We never blew the whistle with the intent to getting a spectators' invitation to Rio. We have not asked for a favour, we have asked for a fair and ethical treatment," Yulia and Vitaly said.

"Having an ethical committee report untruthfully in spite of all the discussions being recorded, is something that we would never have conceived. We respectfully decline your invitation as spectators, but kindly ask you to give Yulia the fair treatment she deserves."

The IOC had also said Stepanova had refused to compete as a member of the Russian team, a claim she rejects.

According to a transcript from a call with the ethics committee, Stepanova said "if the Russian Olympic Committee says that it will support me, that it wishes that I am part of the Russian team, I would accept this...I did not wish to harm the other athletes, on the contrary I wished to make the sport more clean."
 
"Yulia made it absolutely clear that this was not based on her wish to not compete under the Russian flag, but rather on the hostile treatment and threats she had received since December 2014 up to yesterday," the pair said.

Prior doping offense precludes Stepanova

Stepanova, who provided evidence of doping in a series of German broadcaster ARD documentaries, has fled Russia and is living in hiding at an undisclosed location in North America, fearing for her safety. 

"The injury to her life and athletic career for whistle-blowing inured to the benefit of the international sporting community and to her considerable personal detriment," the pair said.
 
The IOC said any Russian athlete with a doping past, including Stepanova, would not be allowed to compete in Rio as it tightened controls following the fallout from the doping scandal involving their country.
 
Stepanova said the decision went against rulings of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which had struck down part of the Olympic Charter blocking sanctioned athletes from future Games, known as the "Osaka rule".
 
In making its decision, CAS had argued there could not be a double punishment for already-sanctioned athletes.

"The IOC's focus on Yulia's past sanction for doping shifts the spotlight away from the real issue, which is that the IOC took no action against Russia for punishing Yulia for being a credible whistleblower by refusing to put her on Russia's Olympic team," the pair said. 

"This amounts to political discrimination in direct violation of the Olympic Charter and was nowhere mentioned in the IOC's decision."

By Reuters

With files from CBC Sports