Nation/World

Court upholds doping-related ban on Russia for Paralympics

RIO DE JANEIRO — The highest court for world sports has upheld the decision to ban Russia from the Paralympic Games for widespread doping, rejecting an appeal by the country and issuing what is considered the final word on the matter.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport said in announcing its decision Tuesday that the punishment by the International Paralympic Committee "was proportionate." Russia, the court noted, "did not file any evidence contradicting the facts" on which officials had based their decision.

The International Paralympic Committee voted unanimously this month to ban Russia from the competition, which begins here on Sept. 7, after an investigation commissioned by anti-doping regulators found that elaborate state-sponsored violations in the country extended to its top disabled athletes.

Russia has been a power in the Paralympic Games, winning 80 medals — nearly 40 percent of the total — at the last Paralympics.

The decision of the Paralympic Committee went beyond the sanctions imposed by the International Olympic Committee, which had considered but rejected a blanket ban on Russian athletes.

The official who ran the drug-testing programs at the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Sochi, Russia, said he had swapped out the urine samples of the country's top Olympians and Paralympians who were doping with clean ones.

Forensic evidence confirmed coordinated cheating by Russia, according to a nearly 100-page report published by the World Anti-Doping Agency last month. The report concluded that authorities, including the Sports Ministry, had covered up the use of performance-enhancing drugs by top athletes for years.

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When the Paralympic Committee ban was announced on Aug. 7, Philip Craven, president of the Paralympic Committee, denounced Russia's "thirst for glory" and its "medals over morals" mentality, adding that Russia's anti-doping system was "broken, corrupted and entirely compromised."

On Tuesday, Craven struck a more conciliatory tone. "It is not a day for celebration, and we have enormous sympathy for the Russian athletes who will now miss out," he said in a statement. "We hope this decision acts as a catalyst for change in Russia."

The protocol for what substances athletes can use in the Paralympics are different from the Olympics.

Therapeutic exemptions are made for some Paralympians, but the use of anabolic steroids — which Russia's anti-doping lab director said was common among top medal contenders — is unequivocally prohibited.

The Russian sports minister, Vitaly Mutko, expressed frustration with the Paralympic Committee's vote, calling the blanket ban "beyond belief" in an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax.

Russian Paralympians had participated in a series of videos in recent weeks, seeking to persuade sports officials to let them compete.

The number of Russian athletes at the Olympic Games here, which concluded Sunday, was affected by the findings of the recent investigation. More than a hundred Russian athletes were barred from competition. The country won 56 medals at this year's Summer Games, compared to roughly 80 at the 2012 Summer Games in London.

As the Rio Games approached, the International Olympic Committee considered a total ban of all Russian athletes. But it ultimately decided against what the organization's president called a "nuclear option" that would have resulted in "death and devastation" and that ran counter to the inclusive spirit of the games.

Instead, Russian athletes were considered tainted, Olympic officials said, and only those who could prove a rigorous history of drug-free tests were allowed to compete.

In barring all Russian athletes, Paralympic officials, who typically act in accordance with Olympic officials, took a bolder decision, which Russia promptly challenged in court.

"It's an unprecedented decision," Mutko told Interfax. "I don't understand what it's based on."

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