Russian Federation was suspended by the IAAF from all global track and field competitions in November, and the ban was upheld Friday in a vote which appeared to have the backing of the worldwide Olympic Committee.
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Russian federal investigators said on Saturday (June 18) they had opened a criminal case against the country’s former anti-doping chief on charges of abuse of office, a day after world athletics’ governing body upheld a ban on Russia for systematic doping.
On Saturday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it welcomed the IAAF’s “strong stance against doping”.
“I would say it was about knowing there was a system and structure in place to deal with those issues and (the IAAF ethics board) was the proper vehicle to do it”.
It came three days ahead of a summit of sports leaders called by the International Olympic Committee to address the eligibility issues for the games.
“No athlete will compete in Rio under a Russian flag”, Andersen said, adding that a “deep-seated culture of tolerance, or worse, appears not to be materially changed”.
“If there is clear evidence of other sports being involved then clearly you would hope that the relevant worldwide federations might take the same view”.
Pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, who won Olympic gold in 2004 and 2008, went even further, saying: “This is a violation of human rights”. But Coe said Russian athletes based outside of the Russian system “could potentially return to worldwide competition as neutrals once their cases are reviewed by our doping review board”.
Only five Russian athletes could be given an exception, but they would only be allowed to enter the competition in Rio as independents.
“It is a sad day but really the International Olympic Committee needs to look at it and say track-and-field athletics, the problem has been there publicly, but what’s being revealed is that many other Russian sports are subject to the same corruption”, Warner told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme.
The IAAF task force which examined Russia’s status made clear that the entire drug-testing system in the country’s track and field program had been tainted by cheating, including with help of the sports ministry.
Earlier this week, Russian athletes with clean doping records addressed Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, asking him to let them take part in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, but apparently the emotional letter was sent in vain.
At a forum in St Petersburg, Putin said that “there has not been and can not be any support at state level for violations in sport, including the use of doping”, and that there should be no collective punishment for Russian athletes.
“I’d be very, very surprised”, he said.
A taskforce studying reforms in Russian Federation acknowledged on Friday that “significant progress” had been made but said the “deep-seated culture” of tolerance of doping “appears not to have changed”.
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Russian Federation has been warned it may face Olympic exile if the allegations of state-sponsored doping at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi are proven.
