“The IOC have let the athletes down and have detracted from what I think will be a very good Games in Rio”.
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Only athletes who pass “reliable adequate worldwide tests” will compete, and Russian tests were deemed invalid, according to an IOC statement.
The IOC decision was sharply criticized by antidoping bodies as a sellout that undermines clean athletes and destroys the idea of a level playing field.
The IAAF meanwhile offered to lend its expertise to other federations, having already opted to ban Russian track and field competitors from Rio, a move upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport following a Russian Olympic Committee appeal last week.
The decision follows a report of an independent commission of WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) in which Canadian law professor Richard McLaren said that Russian Federation had operated a state-sponsored doping programme from 2011 to 2015. It said the presumption of innocence can not be applied to Russian athletes because of the exceptional circumstances revealed by the report. While not imposing a blanket ban on all Russian athletes, the International Olympic Committee decision lays out specific, more stringent criteria for the roughly 400 Russians scheduled to participate in Rio.
The IOC also confirmed it will not allow whistle-blower Yulia Stepanova to compete as a neutral athlete in Rio.
Members of its executive board met in a conference call yesterday and granted wide-reaching powers to the 28 individual federations that govern each sport to rule on which Russian athletes would be permitted to compete in their respective disciplines.
However, the International Olympic Committee added that the rules of natural justice mean that each athlete must be given the opportunity to show that such collective responsibility is not applicable in his or her individual case.
The IOC also said Russian Federation is barred from entering for the Rio Games any athlete who has ever been sanctioned for doping.
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach stressed Sunday that Russian competitors have to pass an extremely rigorous set of criteria before being cleared for the Rio Games.
The 200m butterfly swimmer has expressed his disappointment labelling the decision “an absolute cop out from the IOC”, and is urging athletes not to share the podium with any Russian medallists.
“I am sure that most of the global federations have no issues with Russian athletes”, R-Sport, a sports division of RIA Novosti news agency, quoted Mutko as saying.
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Svetlana Kuznetsova, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Darya Kasatkina and Ekaterina Makarova will compete in women’s singles – Makarova added to the team due to Maria Sharapova’s drug ban – while Elena Vesnina will partner Makarova in the doubles.
