Whistleblower Yulia Stepanova, who helped uncover the biggest doping scandal in decades which threatened to exclude Russian Federation from the Olympics, asked on Monday for a review of her ban from the Rio Games in a last-ditch attempt to compete there.
Advertisement
German athletics chief Clemens Prokop yesterday named the International Olympic Committee ruling “illegal” because of the CAS ruling and because the presence in Rio of other athletes who have previously served doping bans.
Stepanova will now have to compete as a member of the Russian team if she wants to participate in the Olympics.
“Therefor we have no reason not to welcome the Russian theme in Rio”.
Archery was not implicated in the report last week by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, which accused Russian Federation of covering up doping in 20 summer Olympic sports.
However, he didn’t rule out such action from individual athletes, and judging by the 2011 ruling Russian athletes could be successful.
The International Handball Federation has written to the Russian Handball Federation to ask for the whereabouts of the women’s team to enable immediate drug-testing, while, boxing, gymnastics and modern pentathlon have told Press Association Sport that they are now assessing matters.
An announcement from the International Canoeing Federation is also due, with as many as five from that sport believed to be implicated by McLaren.
There has been no comment from judo, triathlon, volleyball or wrestling since the International Olympic Committee decided against a blanket ban for Russia, but all four had issued statements in support of clean Russian athletes in the build-up to the International Olympic Committee announcement.
“The IOC is taking a risk with this controversial decision but they know that with such limited time, any serious Russian challenge is extremely hard”, an Olympics insider with direct knowledge of the affair, told Reuters on Monday.
That means it will not allow whistleblower Stepanova to compete as a neutral athlete in Rio.
Advertisement
The Russian committee had announced that it will send 387 athletes, but Zhukov said the new rules will affect at least 8 of them. “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.
