DPI United

Accordingly all athletes aspire to the same recognition, respect and acknowledgement for their achievement and commitment to their chosen sport,DPI regrets the judgment by theCAS to uphold the IPC decision taken on August 7 to suspend Russian Athletes from the September Paralympic Games in Rio.

The first drug in sports is money; too much money influences athletes and the stakeholders of the Olympic Games organization to breach the rules and to infringe upon Human Rights.

The exclusion of athletes with disabilities who are treated differently is clearly discrimination, disabled athletes are excluded whether they have been doped or not, and punished more severely than theirable-bodied teammates.

With the latest scandal related to the lack of funds to theParalympicsfrom the Brazilian Organizational Committee, the common point of these two facts is that separate games comports to separate treatments and non-acceptable discriminations of athletes with disabilities. Decisions are for all athletes and not conformed exclusively to some athletes.

To end this unacceptable demonstration of discrimination, and to recognize the added value of the active participation of people with disabilities to global development, DPIcallson the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee, to combine the Olympics and Paralympics into one event.

* With thanks toDisability Directand George Johnson to have inspirited us with the petition“Combine the games”published in on Sep 02, 2008.

25 août 2016