We need literally in the next couple of hours and days to do this work with the worldwide federations on each individual athlete. Instead, the IOC left it to 27 worldwide sports federations to make the call on a case-by-case basis.
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The IOC said it had partly based its decision on the fact that she had declined to compete for Russian Federation.
In addition, the worldwide sports federations were ordered to check each Russian athlete’s drug-testing record, with only doping controls conducted outside Russia counting toward eligibility, before authorizing them to compete.
On July 22, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested to ROC that an independent commission be set up to control doping in sport.
Russian sport and the Kremlin have been rocked by doping scandals that saw its track and field team banned from competition, including Rio, and sparked calls led by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for all Russians to be barred until they cleaned up.
Seven Russian athletes have been banned from competing at next month’s Olympic Games by the International Swimming Federation (FINA) in the wake of the International Olympic Committee’s decision not to impose a blanket ban on the nation.
“Yulia made it absolutely clear that this was not based on her wish to not compete under the Russian flag, but rather on the hostile treatment and threats she had received since December 2014 up to yesterday”, the pair said.
On Monday the Stepanovs appealed against the International Olympic Committee decision and angrily claimed the International Olympic Committee banned her on false premises. The IOC accepted that ruling, but would not extend it to other sports.
With the Olympics beginning in just 11 days, it remains to be seen just how many Russian athletes will be able to compete in this year’s event.
Archery was not implicated in the World Anti-Doping Agency report released last week by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, which accused Russian Federation of covering up doping in 20 summer Olympic sports.
It followed confirmation of the IOC Executive Board’s decision that Russian Federation will not be able to enter any athlete who has ever been banned for doping, “even if they have served the sanction”.
“An athlete should not suffer and should not be sanctioned for a system in which he was not implicated”, Bach told reporters after Sunday’s meeting, acknowledging the decision “might not please everybody”.
“This is not about expectations”, he said. “This is about doing justice to clean athletes all over the world”.
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Yuliya Stepanova said the International Olympic Committee had based its decision on “wrong and untrue statements”. “This is not the end of the story but a preliminary decision that concerns Rio 2016”.
