Russia’s top Olympic official expects a final decision by Sunday on whether the entire Russian team will be banned from next month’s games in Rio de Janeiro over allegations of state-sponsored doping. The meeting will take into account a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which is expected today, on an appeal by 68 Russian track and field athletes against the IOC’s ban on their participation in Rio.
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“[A potential boycott] is not being discussed” he said, reiterating the statements made by President Vladimir Putin that a boycott would be “a total mistake”.
“We were upset that the USADA called for the suspension of the Russian team two days prior to the publication of McLaren’s report, without even knowing its contents”, Zhukov said.
The IOC has already banned Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko and all other ministry officials from the Rio Games and withdrawn backing for worldwide events in Russia over the doping programme revealed by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren this week.
WADA has subsequently urged a total ban on Russian athletes competing in the Olympics.
Weightlifting is also in the grip of a doping crisis after many medalists from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics failed retests of their samples. The court is now ruling on whether 68 Russian track-and-field athletes had been legally banned from global competition, based on their individual histories of drugs testing.
The IOC also ordered a disciplinary commission to look into the sports ministry’s role in the drug cheating that included Russia’s secret service swapping dirty urine samples for clean ones through a hole in a wall at the Sochi Olympics.
“We interpreted this as definite pressure on the International Olympic Committee with the aim of excluding the Russian team”, he said.
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Mutko has denied any wrongdoing. In addition, the IOC Executive Board supported the announcement of the Olympic Summit on 21 June 2016 to reverse the “presumption of innocence” of athletes from Russian Federation with regard to doping.
