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On Wednesday, the International Association of Athletics
Federation (IAAF) upheld the ban on 67 Russian track and field
athletes for systematic state-sponsored doping, ending any hopes
they had of competing at next month's Rio Games.
The Moscow tournament, which was announced by Russian state news
agency TASS, will feature banned athletes including Olympic high
jump champion Ivan Ukhov and world 110 meters hurdles champion
Sergey Shubenkov.
"On one hand Russia is saying they want to change their system
and the culture of doping in their country," Chiller told
reporters on Thursday.
"And yet to organise an event for those cheats and for those
dopers I think is completely the wrong message."
The Australian gymnastics team are awaiting a decision by the
international federation (FIG) on Russian athletes to see if
they will replace them, while the women's eight rowing crew has
been handed a berth in place of a banned Russian team.
Chiller, however, feels Australian athletes should avoid getting
distracted by the Russian doping situation when they are in Rio.
"I'll be encouraging all our team members in all our sports to
focus on their own performance. The (Russian) decision has been
made, there is nothing we can do about it," Chiller added.
"The hurdles that those Russian athletes who have been cleared
to compete, the hurdles that they had to jump to be here are
very strict and very high.
"We need to accept that process, it was a strict, it was a fair
process, and get on with it. Focus on our own lane, on our
performance and focus on our own best result that we can
possibly do."
(Reporting by Nivedita Shankar in Bengaluru; Editing by John
O'Brien)
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