Martin Rogers

USA TODAY Sports

RIO DE JANEIRO – It was the same report, the same, crystal-clear, damning evidence. The same black-and-white, undeniable proof that Russia’s government fronted a despicable doping cartel aimed at cheating its way to sporting success.

But this time, the Russians did not slip off the hook.

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That the International Paralympic Committee made the move on Sunday to expel Russia from its Games for disabled athletes says as many good things about that organization as it does negatives about the International Olympic Committee.



The IOC choked last month when it was poised with blade in hand to strike a blow for clean sport, clean government, fair competition, honest effort, and pretty much every other positive thing one can associate with the Olympics.

Bosses of the Paralympic bosses didn’t waste the chance, not in the name of making a statement for the sake of it, but because it was the right thing to do.

In some ways the Paralympic Games represent the best of what sports has to offer, the simple yet beautiful ideal of triumph over struggle, and not just against an opponent or a clock.In Sochi in 2014, the Winter Paralympics was poisoned by the Russian program of pumping its athletes with performances enhancers, then using subterfuge to tamper with the results to mask their deeds.

“The Russia state-run program of cheating questioned the integrity and credibility of sport as we know it,” IPC president Sir Philip Craven said. “The system in Russia is broken, corrupted and entirely compromised. Their ‘medals over morals’ mentality disgusts me.”

Craven is a sports politician, which pretty much by design means he is not perfect. Some felt he schmoozed too closely with Russian leader Vladimir Putin around the time of Sochi, which he publicly proclaimed as the best Paralympics ever.

But back then he didn’t know. None of us did, and even those who suspected something fishy when Russia claimed an extraordinary tally of 80 medals – including 30 golds – couldn’t have imagined the extent of it.

That was all laid out in the McLaren report, a paper so comprehensive that the IPC vote was unanimous and swift.

So what was the IOC missing when it resisted the chance to do the same a couple of weeks earlier?

IOC chief Thomas Bach said banishing the Russian delegation would have been the “nuclear” option and left the choice up to the individual sports. Predictably, only a handful took the tough route, meaning there will be 271 Russian athletes competing at the Olympics.

The IOC is a large and unwieldy organization that can barely breathe for red tape and political entangling, but that is not an excuse for its reticence.

It’s inaction ensured that the Russia conundrum will be one of the things these Games are remembered for, even more so after the Paralympics leaders showed how it should have been done.