Russian sports officials should do everything possible regarding anti-doping measures at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, two-time champion of the 2010 Olympics Ivan Skobrev said.
“I am very upset about Russian athletes getting caught for [performance enhancing drugs],” the skater said at a roundtable discussion during the International forum Russia Is A Sport Power.
“It’s incorrect; I’m against this. Everything should be fair in sports. If a fair competition at the Winter Olympics leads us to victory, the Olympics will remain in everybody’s memory.”
“Today there is a unique sort of competition of characters, emotions, cultures, of everything that distinguishes each country from others,” he said.
He added that “sports calls for peace.”
“It unites cities and countries, unites all people. A truce was declared in ancient Greece during the Games not without reason. However, we have a number of bad examples, for instance, the example of the Summer Olympics in Beijing,” he said, referring to Georgia’s offensive attack on South
Ossetia to bring the republic back under central control on the eve of the Games in August 2008, sparking a short war between Georgia and Russia.
Skobrev said that he was seized by a storm of inexpressible emotions while performing at the Olympics in Vancouver.
“Each athlete remembers his victories well. It is like a drug: the more you get, the more you want. I hope I’ll have this experience again in Sochi,” the skater said.
MOSCOW, July 30 (RIA Novosti)
