The entire Russian team has not been allowed to compete
in this year’s Paralympic Games.
SIMFEROPOL, August 29. /TASS/. Crimea’s Head Sergey
Aksyonov has approved of the idea that the Black Sea peninsula should host
special competitions for Paralympians that Russian President Vladimir Putin
suggested organizing.
"I fully back the idea that Crimea should hold
alternative competitions for athletes who have been denied the right to
participate in the Paralympics by sports officials," the press service
cited Aksyonov as saying.
The Crimean leader said the decision to suspend the
Russian Paralympic Committee was "unprecedentedly insolent and
cynical." "We understand the reasons behind this - its impotent rage.
Russia’s enemies see that all their attempts of harming this country have
failed. They tried to take it out on our Olympic athletes - but they failed,
and now they are venting their spite on people with disabilities… Once again
they have made the whole world understand that they have neither legal nor
moral norms," he stressed.
Restrictions against Russia’s Paralympic movement were
introduced in the wake of the investigation by the independent commission of
the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) headed by Richard McLaren. On July 22,
after receiving information about 35 Russian Paralympians whose names were
mentioned in the WADA commission’s report, the International Paralympic
Committee (IPC) opened a case against the RPC.
On August 7, IPC head Philip Craven announced that the
Committee would not let the Russian team compete at the Summer Paralympic Games
scheduled to be held in Rio de Janeiro from September 7 to 18. Last week, the
Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissed an appeal filed by the Russian
Paralympic Committee to fight the ban on Russian athletes from next month’s
Paralympic Games. So, the entire Russian team has not been allowed to compete
in this year’s Paralympic Games.
President Putin said on Thursday the country would
organize special competitive events for Paralympians at which they could
demonstrate their skills. In addition, winners would receive prizes on par with
those of the Olympics.
Earlier, Deputy Head of the State Duma Committee on
Labor, Social Policy and Veteran Affairs, Member of the Executive Committee of
the Russian Paralympic Committee Mikhail Terentyev said such Games should be
held in Sochi or in Crimea.
Source: ITAR-TASS 29-08-2016
