“We firmly believe that clean athletes should not be punished for the actions of others”, he said in an open letter to IAAF President Sebastian Coe.
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Liliya Shobukhova, 38, competed in the London Olympics in 2012 while Coe, the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), received the email in 2014.
Ahead of the decision, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “in legal terms everything possible is done and will be done to protect the interests of our athletes and Russia’s Olympic team”.
Global track officials said on Friday that individuals who could “clearly and convincingly show they are not tainted by the Russian system” – because they have been outside the country and subject to rigorous testing – could individually petition to compete for a neutral team.
“No athlete will compete in Rio under a Russian flag”, he said.
The IAAF has still held out the possibility for Russians who can prove they are clean to go to Rio, potentially as neutral athletes, but Boyle remains sceptical. “But when you question our system that way, it paints a shadow over who she is and what she’s about when it comes to being a clean athlete”.
It is also alleged that Coe won the presidency of the federation with assistance from ex-IAAF consultant Papa Massata Diack, now wanted by Interpol for his role in the doping scandal. “The decision was unanimous – politics did not play a part in that room today”.
The ruling came four days before a sports summit called by the International Olympic Committee to address the hard decision between collective responsibility and individual justice..
They now have a toe in the door, so to speak, that they can try to exploit when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meets to discuss the IAAF decision in Lausanne on Tuesday.
The IAAF Council ruled that “any individual athlete who has made an extraordinary contribution to the fight against doping in sport should also be able to apply for such permission to compete, in particular, Yuliya Stepanova’s case should be considered favourably”. This week Wada claimed 73 of 455 tests on athletes could not be collected, 436 tests were declined or cancelled, and a “significant number” were missed. “Eligibility is a matter for the IAAF”.
The Russian athletics federation (ARAF) was suspended in November following an 11-month investigation by an independent commission chaired by former World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound.
“The Olympic Charter is based on the premise that everyone should participate”, Zhukov said, expressing hope that the IAAF would make an “objective, balanced decision”.
“There are doubts that the International Olympic Committee has the jurisdiction to change the ruling”, he said in comments reported by Russian news agency R-Sport. The report detailed some of the measures Russian athletes have taken to avoid drug-testing in the months that followed the initial IAAF suspension, including one incident in which an “athlete used a container inserted inside her body (presumably containing clean urine)”.
Mr Norman said: “I’m not going to get drawn on that, let’s see where we end up, but that’s certainly the situation as I understand it”. That is a much-needed message.. It appealed to the International Olympic Committee to “consider the impact that our athletes’ exclusion will have on the dreams and the people of Russian Federation”.
It added that the Olympics are supposed to be a source of unity, and we hope that they remain as a way of bringing people together..
Before the ruling was announced, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he rejected the idea of collective responsibility in doping cases and said the Russian state had never supported doping by any athletes. “I will appeal to the court of human rights”.
“Some of those athletes may well be Russian athletes living outside of Russia for an appropriate period of time in safe, secure, effective systems but there may be others who are not”.
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The 800m runner and her husband Vitaliy were the whistleblowers who helped uncover just how rotten the Russian system had become when they first took their story to WADA and then to a German documentary-maker. The IAAF acted on a recommendation by a special task force that has monitored Russia’s reform efforts.
