Russia has been barred from taking part in next month's Rio Paralympics, with organisers blasting a "medals over morals mentality" as they announced the blanket ban over state-backed doping that Olympics bosses avoided. Russia immediately said it would appeal and condemned the move as violating the human rights of its athletes. It is all the ravings of a piebald mare," R-Sport news agency quoted Vladimir Lukin, president of the Russian Paralympic Committee, as saying. "The decision to bar the entire Russian team from the Paralympics is astoundingly mean and inhuman," she wrote on Facebook. "Tragically this situation is not about athletes cheating a system, but about a state-run system that is cheating the athletes," Craven said.

Source: Otago Daily Times August 07, 2016 21:45 UTC