IOC failed sport, says former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies

IOC President Thomas Bach. Photo / Getty Images

The International Olympic Committee ignored their past failures and betrayed clean sport by not giving Russia a blanket ban from the Rio Games, according to former Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies.

The reason the IOC went easy on Russia, Davies believes, is that IOC president Thomas Bach is too 'buddy buddy' with Russia's president Vladimir Putin, and that the IOC cares less about clean sport than political ties and making money.

'The IOC should have given a blanket ban to Russia, absolutely,' Davies told the Mail on Sunday. 'This isn't the first state-sponsored doping programme we've known, but like others in the past, the IOC has failed sport by not acting.'

Davies was a finalist in the 400m medley at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, coming second behind East Germany's Petra Schneider, who later admitted to doping.

'When that happened, there were regular cases of East Germans escaping and going to the IOC with the blue pills they'd been told to take, and the IOC did nothing, which is criminal,' Davies says.

'Failing to act meant two lots of victims - the clean athletes who missed out to cheats, and the sportspeople who doped. Some of the East German women had terrible health problems, fertility issues, Adam's apples, five o'clock shadows, heart defects.

'The IOC passed the buck then and they've done it again. I believe if [ex-IOC president] Jacques Rogge were still in charge, he may have banned Russia. But Bach is too buddy buddy with Putin.'

Seven Russian swimmers have been banned from Rio, but Davies insists that is not enough. 'Those seven have won 88 international medals since the 2012 Games, which tells you something,' she says.