Next year, the Racewalk World Cup will take place in Cheboksary, Russia, but the new 50 km world champion, Matej Toth, will not attend the competition.
The Slovakian athlete won this edition of the World Championships in 3h40’32, but he decided not to compete in the next edition of the world cup as a form of protest against the doping scandal that involved many Russian athletes trained by Viktor Chegin.
The decision has been communicated to media during the post race press conference, after the discovery that the only Russian racewalker called up for Beijing had been tested positive to EPO.
“I think the Russian Federation has taken the right decision preventing the athletes trained by Chegin from competing in these World Championships – Toth said – I’m sorry to say that but today our race has been much cleaner without the Russian racewalkers”.
I hope the Russian athletes understand they can be strong even without having to cheat taking drugs, which are bad for the sport and for themselves as well.
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