The ban on Ivan Podshivalov, Ivan Balandin, and Anastasia Karabelshchikova means that the Russian women’s crew boat and one other men’s crew may not be able to attend the Olympics because the banned rowers “can’t be replaced”, Russian Rowing Federation head Veniamin But said. The Russians are expected to field another strong team in Rio, led by two-time world champion Abdulrashid Sadulaev.
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Stepanov, who previously worked for Russia’s anti-doping agency, and his wife helped expose the doping scandal which threatened to exclude Russian Federation from the Olympics.
Apparently all reigning Olympic all-around champion Gabby Douglas needed to overcome a so-so performance at Olympic Trials is quality time with national team coordinator Martha Karolyi.
“We had to balance the collective responsibility and the individual justice to which every human being and athlete is entitled to”, Thomas Bach, the International Olympic Committee president, told reporters during a conference call.
They are 2008 Olympic silver and 2012 bronze medalist Nikita Lobintsev, bronze medalist Vladimir Morozov and world junior record holder Daria Ustinova. They said Russian cheating hurt clean athletes all over the world, so why should clean athletes in Russia get a pass? “Will (clean) athletes fully accept the decision?” “Why are only Russian sportsmen being punished in this way” Zhukov said in televised comments.
“While WADA fully respects the IOC’s autonomy to make decisions under the Olympic Charter, the approach taken and the criteria set forward will inevitably lead to a lack of harmonization, potential challenges, and lesser protection for clean athletes”, Niggli said in a statement on Sunday.
In a statement issued by Stepanova and her husband Vitaly, however, they said they had written to the International Olympic Committee asking for a review, 10 days before the start of the Games in the Brazilian metropolis.
As disappointing as the IOC’s decision was, its total abandonment of whistle blower Yulia Stepanova was downright chilling.
This decision from the International Olympic Committee is due to a recent report from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), specifically from Canadian law professor Richard McLaren, which detailed widespread Russian government involvement and participation in a doping program during 2011 to 2015.
This was a massive doping program spread across winter and summer federations, with the McLaren report finding that positive tests were made to disappear in 29 different sports.
Unlike athletes from other countries, any Russian who has tested positive will now be denied eligibility, even if the athlete has served his or her punishment. He added that the number will rise.
Yet, on Sunday, the IOC’s executive board asked the global federations that govern each sport to do most of the work in deciding who is eligible for Rio de Janeiro next month.
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Russia’s gymnastics team – the first group of Russian athletes to arrive in Rio – are already training, coach Valentina Rodionenko told R-Sport news agency, saying that “the worst is behind us”.
