Rejecting calls by anti-doping officials for a complete ban on Russia, Olympic leaders on Sunday gave individual sports federations the task of deciding which athletes should be cleared to compete in next month’s Rio.
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The International Paralympic Committee will decide next month whether to ban Russian Federation from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics after opening disciplinary proceedings against the doping-tainted nation.
“In short, it does not send the clear message it could have done, that doping and cheating in all Olympic sport will never be tolerated”.
The IOC says the federations have the authority, under their own rules, to exclude Russian teams as a whole from their sports.
By DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer A year away from golf’s return to the Olympics after a 112-year absence, IOC President Thomas Bach said it would be good if the sport had a wide range of players from.
The decision, announced after a three-hour meeting via teleconference of the IOC’s executive board, comes just 12 days before the opening of the Games on August 5.
Russians who have already served a suspension for doping – such as swimmer Yulina Efimova – have also been banned but athletes from other countries with prior indiscretions will be allowed to compete in Brazil. Stepanova had previously hoped to compete in the games under a neutral flag. They are now in hiding in the U.S.in fear for their lives.
– The IOC’s call to bar from Rio any Russian athlete who had previously served an anti-doping ban runs counter to a 2011 decision that made it impermissible to do that very thing. So did the US anti-doping agency. She wrote on Twitter: “The IOC have missed the biggest moment in their history to honour the dedication & sacrifice clean athletes make to compete at the Olympics”.
He added that it was frustrating the International Olympic Committee would “pass the baton to sports federations who may lack the adequate expertise or collective will to appropriately address the situation within the short window prior to the games”. Wada announces an independent commission to investigate the allegations.
If the International Olympic Committee bans Russian Federation from Rio, it will be the first time a country has been excluded since 1988, when South Africa’s International Olympic Committee suspension over apartheid was still in force.
It follows a report commissioned by Wada and undertaken by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren which reaffirmed allegations that the Russian sports ministry oversaw an expansive doping programme, including the manipulation of urine samples at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.
The one they did make keeps Russian Federation engaged in the Olympics – not an altogether surprising result, considering the country recently spent $51 billion on the Sochi Games, which have now been proven to be as drug-tainted and corrupt as any in history. Two years before at the London Summer Games, Russian athletes won 79 medals, of which 22 were gold.
The committee asked the federations to examine the information and names of athletes and sports implicated in the McLaren report.
The FSB is Russia’s federal security service, while the CSP is involved in the training of Russian athletes.
Calls for a blanket ban had intensified with Olympic skeleton racer and British IOC member Adam Pengilly saying: “The scale, leadership and co-ordination of a system like this is arguably the most heinous crime possible against the Olympic movement”.
The IOC set extra criteria for Russian athletes when ruling out a complete ban. Back then, at the height of the cold war, a tit-for-tat dispute with the USA ensured athletes from the Soviet Union did not travel to the Los Angeles Games.
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Multiple countries have boycotted Games, however, notably the United States at Moscow 1980, which preceded Russia’s boycott of Los Angeles 1984.
