Putin calls for individuals to bear responsibility in doping scandal



MOSCOW: -- President Vladimir Putin says he wants Russia to carry out its own investigation into allegations its athletes have systematically taken performance-enhancing drugs.

Speaking for the first time on the scandal while a visit with sports officials in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, the president also said not all athletes should be tarred with the same brush.

‘‘Responsibility should be personalised, it is a general rule that the responsibility always should be personalised. And for sure those athletes who are far away from doping and have never touched it should not be held responsible for those who violate rules’‘.

Russia has until Friday to respond to a damning report by the World’s Anti-Doping Agency which alleged a culture of cheating in Russian athletics. In the meantime the sports minister has pledged his country will adopt new measures to clamp down on doping including devising new testing methods.

Russia could be banned from international athletics, including the 2016 Olympic Games, after WADA found a “deeply routed culture of cheating” in Russian athletics, which it said Russian state security services colluded with, and also identified what it called systematic failures in the global governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).


-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2015-11-12

It's not just individuals you idiot, it's the State !

Ban them and ban him.

Confronted with hard evidence that State Russian officials had colluded with Russian dope testing institutions, Raz Putin announced that he wants these same institutions and officials to investigate and that a few scapegoats would be pardoned. Good on you Raz, you uphold all the good that is corrupt in Ruskieland. As an international gay icon, you make everything that is bad seem so good. You should be sent to the Syrian front.

It's also about Wada / Usada but anyway.

This guy is pathetic! The state KNEW what was happening. Athletics at international level is at a turning point. But whenever money is involved there is ALWAYS cheating in sport as in life.

I'm sure the mad doping scientists from Dagistan or Chechnya that was responsible for all these violations will be severly punished following Putin's independent investigation. Probably have a cell next to the murderers of the opposition leaders.

What's being uncovered is that antidoping agencies are on the payroll. This isn't just a Russian problem, it happens in the US too.