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Russia Olympic Committee ditched by IOC for including bodies from Ukraine as members

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Deputy Sports Editor - Morning Wire

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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has suspended the Russian Olympic Committee after they sought to include Ukrainian sports bodies in Donetsk.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has suspended the Russian Olympic Committee after they sought to include Ukrainian sports bodies in Donetsk. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

    The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has suspended the Russian Olympic Committee after they sought to include Ukrainian sports bodies in Donetsk.

    The ROC took the decision to include, as its members, “the regional sports organisations which are under the authority of the NOC of Ukraine (namely Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia), the IOC said.

    The suspension is indefinite and means the ROC are no longer entitled to operate as a National Olympic Committee and that the IOC are able to decide whether Russians can participate in the Olympics.

    The Russian athletics doping suspension, though, remains concluded.

    “Western countries are trying to use sports for unseemly purposes as a tool of pressure,” the Russian president told news agency TASS in March.