Russia banned again.
This time the Russian Team is banned from international competition for 4 years.
Russias' team can't compete in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, the 2020 Para Olympics, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and 2022 World Cup Finals in Qatar by WADA (World Anti Doping Agency).
They also can't host any sporting events either. The last event the country hosted was the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
The reason for the ban, it was found that they falsified info, deleted files regarding the probing of alleged doping of Russian athletes at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
The Russian athletes that are found clean have to compete under the flag of neutral countries.
My question is this, what happened to the integrity of countries? What happened to fair play?
Why did Russia cheat? Are there going to be safeguards to make sure this doesn't happen again?
What happened ti training and putting in hard work for decades to achieve a medal?
What does that say to the Russian athletes who were clean? Was their sacrifice and hard work done in vain?
Is the lust of national pride more important than integrity?
What message does this send to the young?
By taking action, the Olympics can get back to what it should be really about, fair play.