Russia has decided to put together a tournament for the athletes who were denied the chance to compete at this year’s Rio Olympics due to, you know, years of systematic drug cheating.
With the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) deciding to ban Russian from competing in Rio, the competition will give those athletes the chance to show what phenomenal sportspeople they are, which in no way has anything to do with the state-sponsored doping program uncovered by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
The tournament, given the super imaginative name “Stars 2016” (which, if you type into google, will provide you with a bizarre mix of results ranging from ‘Dancing With The Stars’ to horoscope readings, and very little about athletic excellence) will take place this Thursday, Russian time, and will be held at Moscow’s Znamensky Brothers Stadium.
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Incidentally, Thursday is when all of Russia’s other athletes will fly to Rio, giving the whole event a distinctly ‘side-show’ feel.
Around 135 athletes will compete at Stars 2016, a far cry from the 10,000-odd headed to Rio. But given president Vladimir Putin has said the Olympics are going to be far less of a spectacle without his Russian athletes competing, you can be sure Stars will be a must-watch event for the hundred or so people interested in turning up.
While most of Russia’s banned athletes will compete in Moscow, it appears not all of their athletes are entirely on board with the idea.
Notably, pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva, a two-time Olympic gold medallist and three-time world champion, has decided that she stands a better chance of adding to her illustrious resume by fighting Russia’s ban at the European Court of Human Rights than by competing at the Stars tournament.
Another one of the athletes not listed to compete is Yuliya Stepanova who, despite being a Russian athlete barred from competing in Rio, probably isn’t too popular in the Motherland after blowing the lid on the doping going on in the country.
Of course, given the whole issue of Russia’s exclusion from the Olympics revolves around the state-sponsored doping program uncovered by Stepanova and WADA, you’d assume Stars 2016 will be backed by extremely rigorous drug testing at the venue to prove just how legitimate their athletics program is.
I mean, that’s what we’re going to do, because there’s not exactly an abundance of information about the competition, save for national team coach Yuriy Borzakovskiy saying that there will be a bunch of “less renowned athletes” competing alongside their better-known compatriots.
It all sounds like the perfect idea, really.
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