Punish Russian officials, not athletes for doping – Shobukhova

By Dmitriy Rogovitskiy

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Distance runner Liliya Shobukhova said Russian officials rather than athletes should be punished in the wake of an anti-doping commission report that alleged widespread corruption and collusion in the sporting superpower.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report released on Monday recommended that Russian athletes should be suspended from competing until the country’s athletics federation cleaned up its act.

Shobukhova, a former winner of the London and Chicago marathons, recently completed a doping ban that was cut from three years and two months to two years and seven months after WADA said she had provided assistance in their investigations.

The 37-year-old said a ban on Russian athletes would be punishing the innocent.

“I don’t understand this recommendation from WADA,” she said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Sport Express. “What do the sportsmen have to do with this? How can you take away the opportunity of going to the Olympics from a young athlete who has dreamed all his life about this and has done nothing wrong?”

“If a sportsman is disqualified, they lose everything – medals, prize money, wages,” said Shobukhova, who featured in a 2014 German documentary that alleged systematic doping by Russian athletes. “What happens to the officials? Nothing. They need to punish them, not us.”

The Kremlin has dismissed doping allegations against its athletes as entirely groundless, while Russia’s sporting and anti-doping chiefs suggested the international furore bore all the hallmarks of a “political hit job”.

(Reporting By Dmitriy Rogovitskiy; Editing by John O’Brien and Pravin Char)