'Banning Russia from Rio Olympics to bring back dark days of 1980s'

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Moscow, May 25: Barring the entire Russian squad from the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will return sports to the 1980s when national teams boycotted competitions for political reasons, Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko has said.

The Russian national team could be banned from the upcoming Olympic Games in Brazil August 5-21 amid several major doping scandals in the country's sports, reports Tass.

"If the whole team is suspended from participation in the Olympic Games, then this will return everything to the time when there were boycotts. I want to stress that the state has never supported people using doping," Mutko said on Tuesday.

The 1980 Summer Olympic Games in Moscow were marred by a boycott on behalf of a number of foreign countries, including the United States, in protest of Soviet military presence in Afghanistan.

IANS