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DECEMBER 24, 2020 | The Jewish Home
The Week In News
Russia Flag, Anthem Banned from Olympics
Russia has been banned from using its flag and anthem in the next two Olympics and any world championship for the next two years for its involvement in a massive doping scandal. The ruling was handed down by The Court of Arbitration for Sport,
a Swiss international court founded by multiple sports leagues in 1984 to mediate athletic disputes between countries. As punishment for what the World Anti-Doping Agency called “widespread abuse of performance enhancing drugs,” Russia will be banned from using its name, flag, and anthem and from hosting major sports competitions until 2022. The ruling means that Russian athletes will not be banned from competing at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the 2022 Winter Olympics in China, and the World Cup in Doha in 2022. Rather than wearing their national attire, Russian athletes will be outfitted in uniforms labeled simply “Neutral Athlete” or “Neutral Team.” In a small concession, the Court allowed Russian athletes to wear their national colors as long as it did not resemble their flag and to write “Russia” on their uniform in small letters. RUSADA, Russia’s anti-doping body, was also fined $1.27 million. The Court’s decision is a small win for Moscow, as the international body halved the four-year ban recommended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). “It has considered matters of pro-
portionality and, in particular, the need to effect cultural change and encourage the next generation of Russian athletes to participate in clean international sport,” the panel stated. The decision was hailed by WADA President Witold Bańka as a victory despite the Court having had rejected its recommended four-year ban. “The panel has clearly upheld our findings that the Russian authorities brazenly and illegally manipulated the Moscow Laboratory data in an effort to cover up an institutionalized doping scheme,” Bańka said. The ruling was met by disbelief and condemnation throughout the world by athletes and anti-doping activists who asserted that the twoyear ban was inordinately lenient. U.S. anti-doping agency head Travis Tygar blasted the decision as a “weak, watered-down outcome” for “robbing sport and clean athletes.” “To once again escape a meaningful consequence proportional to the crimes, much less a real ban, is a catastrophic blow to clean athletes, the integrity of sport, and the rule of law,” said Tygar. WADA had slapped Russia with a four-year ban in 2019 after uncovering a vast doping campaign by Rus-
sian Olympians during the 2014 Sochi Games. The scandal saw Russian authorities purposely doctoring testing data and manipulating results to cover up their country’s systematic use of performance enhancing drugs. The four-year ban was subsequently appealed by Moscow, leading to Friday’s court ruling.
U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Targeted
At least eight Katyusha rockets landed in Baghdad’s Green Zone on Sunday in an attack authorities say targeted the U.S. Embassy. An Iraqi security guard was said to be killed in the shelling, while half a dozen vehicles were damaged along
