On December 5th of 2017, the IOC (International Olympics Committee) ruled that Russia cannot participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. This is a result of rumors that Russia has been involved in doping some of their athletes to help them perform better in the games. The IOC decided to not let Russia compete after 17 months of extensive research and collecting information, hearings, and evidence from all of the main athletes in Russia, according to the Olympic Games.
This is not the first time Russia has been involved in rumors regarding their athletes taking performance enhancing drugs to try and win as many gold medals as possible. Russia has had 42 medals (10 winter, 32 summer) stripped because of violations involving doping, according to The Guardian.
However, instead of banning all Russian athletes, the IOC has agreed to let the Russian athletes not involved in the doping rumors compete once evidence has been provided that they did not use performance enhancing drugs. There are going to be at least 169 Russian athletes participating in the games this year, however, instead of competing under the Russian flag, they will compete under a neutral flag under the title of “Olympic Athletes From Russia”.
As CKM is home to many different sports, the Prospector wanted to find out what our own student athletes thought about the the recent controversy surrounding doping and Team Russia.
Freshman soccer player Neveah Newman stated, “I mean, that’s terrible. I think they shouldn’t have to take drugs to be a better athlete.”
Christopher Christmas, a freshman who plays basketball, also commented, “I think Russia has to stop doing that because it’s not fair to the other athletes that are not doped up on drugs. It makes the competition unfair and unfun.”