Bach met with Russian Olympians in Pyeongchang

Bach, at a meeting with Russian athletes, explained the reasons for Russia's non-admission to the Olympic Games


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PKHYNCHKHAN / South Korea /, 14 February. / TASS /. President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach at a meeting with Russian athletes told about the reasons for not allowing a large number of their compatriots to participate in the competition. This TASS told bobsledder Maxim Andrianov, who was present at the conversation with the head of the IOC.

The meeting was held in the mountainous Olympic Village, it was attended by athletes who on this day were free from training and competition.

"Bach told us that there were special people who checked everything for each athlete separately.The IOC had certain doubts about the doping tests of a number of Russian athletes," Andrianov said.

"I learned about this meeting only today, as far as I understood, the initiative came from the head of the IOC, apparently it was important for him to communicate with the athletes and listen to their opinion," he said.

The meeting consisted of two parts: first Bach spoke before us with a short speech, in which he spoke about why Russian athletes got into this situation, then - was given the opportunity to each athlete to ask the head of the IOC. "I had a lot of questions, the head of the IOC tried to give an answer to each of them, I think this meeting was important for us and for him," Andrianov said.

Russian athletes, due to the disqualification of the National Olympic Committee, perform at the Games in Pyeongchang under the Olympic flag as Olympic athletes from Russia. Before the start of the Olympics, two IOC commissions selected 169 athletes who were allowed to compete, including a number of leading athletes, such as two-time world ski champion Sergei Ustyugov, six-time short track Olympic champion Victor An, Olympic champion in biathlon Anton Shipulin. All of them were not previously involved in doping violations.

Link: http://tass.ru/sport/4957509