“Did he do dope and have an epiphany?” Rodnin was amused by McLaren’s statement about Russian athletes

Three-time Olympic champion in figure skating and a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Irina Rodnina told that she agreed with the statement Richard McLaren on the admission of Russian athletes to international tournaments.

Earlier, the International Olympic Committee called on international sports federations to withdraw Russian athletes from official competitions due to the situation in Ukraine. On Sunday, the head of the independent World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) commission investigating the doping scandal at the 2014 Olympics, McLaren, in an interview with Sportschau, called for the admission of Russian athletes to the international competitions.

“He didn’t drink something that strange, did he?” Maybe he doped and had a revelation? – Rodnina said laughing. – Decided to rehabilitate? Now, he’s absolutely right, because it’s okay to suspend for violation. There are many forms of punishment in sport: ejections from the field, underestimation, etc., which, again, is normal. Now everything is simply incomprehensible, some kind of psychosis is underway … It is normal to understand that the current situation is completely abnormal.

I wish Thomas Bach understood that too. It seems to me that he has absolutely no program, unlike the previous leaders of the IOC. For example, Juan Antonio Samaranch wanted to federate the Olympic movement and has just fallen into the boycotts of the 80s. Then came Jacques Rogge, who explained his anti-doping program very clearly. But what Thomas Bach proposed is not clear … He added the word “together” to the Olympic motto, but in reality everything turned upside down.

In 2016, McLaren wrote a report in which he stated that in Russia there was a state system that manipulated doping samples and covered up athletes. In 2017, Vitaly Smirnov, who headed the Independent Public Anti-Doping Commission, said McLaren had dropped allegations of state support for Russian doping.