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Vladimir Putin says absence of Russians will devalue Olympic medals

Russian president Vladimir Putin addresses the Russian Olympic team. (Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)
Russian president Vladimir Putin addresses the Russian Olympic team. (Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)

The list of Russian athletes banned from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics grew to 105 on Tuesday, and as you might imagine, Vladimir Putin is brimming with indignation and conspiracy theories.

Stopping short of ruling Russia out of the 2016 Summer Olympics entirely after the country orchestrated a comprehensive doping scandal that drove the host country’s winning medal count at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, the International Olympic Committee ruled out another 27 would-be Russian Olympians on Tuesday in track, rowing, canoeing and sailing, according to the Associated Press.

All in all, nearly a third of Russia’s 387-person Olympic roster has been banned from Brazil.

And while many believe the IOC’s decision to spare his country from complete banishment was due in part to Putin’s influence over the global sports federation, that isn’t stopping the Russian president from calling the IOC’s limited bans a “deliberate campaign” against a global athletic superpower.

“The deliberate campaign targeting our athletes was characterized by so-called double standards and opted for the idea of collective responsibility, which is not compatible with sport, justice in general, or the basic norms of law,” Putin told a crowd of Russian Olympians in the Kremlin, via Reuters.

He added: “This is a blow to the entire sporting world and to the Olympic Games. It is obvious that the absence of Russian sports people — leaders in many sporting disciplines — will significantly affect the intensity of the competition and diminish the spectator value of the forthcoming events.”

Putin argued Olympic medals won without Russians in opposition would be tainted, according to Reuters, which is awfully ironic for the leader of a country whose alleged government cover-up of performance-enhancing drugs calls into question every medal Russian won at the 2014 Winter Games.

Granted, Russia captured the fourth-most medals — 79 total, including 22 gold — at the last Summer Olympics in London four years ago, and that number figures to be significantly lower with nearly half the competitors in Brazil, but that makes an Olympic medal no less impressive for anybody in 2016, because at least we can be more confident any medals Russia wins this time around will be clean.