Paralympics boss urges clarity for Tokyo after Russia doping ban

The head of the International Paralympic Committee Tuesday called for clear guidance over the participation of Russian athletes at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, adding that it was "disgusting" that authorities had allegedly tampered with doping samples.

In an interview with AFP, Andrew Parsons said he expected Russia to appeal Monday's decision by the World Anti-Doping Agency to ban the country for four years from major global sports events after accusing the Russians of falsifying data from a testing laboratory.

Under the sanctions, Russian sportsmen and women will still be allowed to compete at the Olympics and Paralympics, but only as neutrals and only if they can demonstrate that they were not part of what WADA believes was a state-sponsored system of doping.

"At the end of the day, the decision will be a CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) decision and we will then need to react but it will be four months prior to the Games, so we will need to react quickly," said Parsons.

"It will depend a lot on the decision. What we want is for the decision to be clear in the sense that there will be a clear path... on what will be the participation of Russian athletes -- if any?"
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