Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko has received a reply from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), saying the exclusion of Russian track-and-field athletes from the Rio Olympics can not be reversed, Russian news agencies reported on Wednesday.
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Earlier, the International Canoe Federation (ICF) ruled five sprint canoeists – Elena Aniushina, Alexander Dyachenko, Alexey Korovashkov, Andrey Kraitor and Natalia Podolskaia – ineligible but stopped short of issuing a federation-wide ban.
World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren reported last week that four positive doping tests in Russian fencing disappeared in recent years.
Dyachenko won gold in the men’s double kayak 200 meters at the 2012 London Games.
ICF secretary general Simon Toulson said: “This is a bitter blow for the Olympic movement and we are saddened that our sport is implicated”.
Germany’s Olympic discus champion Robert Harting has launched a stinging attack on International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach, describing him as part of the problem in the fight against doping.
But the largest ban is in track and field, where all 68 team members were given a blanket ban by the worldwide athletics body.
World Sailing said Pavel Sozykin, who had been due to race in the 470 class, would be excluded because he was mentioned in the McLaren report. “We await the Russian Rowing Federation’s decision on this possibility”.
Bach fired back that the decision to leave individual sports federations to decide which Russians could compete “respects the right of every clean athlete around the world”.
While the International Olympic Committee refused Sunday to impose a blanket ban on Russia, it brought in new criteria preventing Russians from competing if they have previously served a ban or were implicated in McLaren’s report.
Head of Russian Rowing Federation Veniamin But attends a news conference in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, July 26, 2016.
Russian Federation has the option of forming a men’s four team from the six who have been given the green light to compete.
Yuliya Stepanova, the Russian 800m runner who lifted the lid on systematic doping and corruption in Russian athletics, is making one last-gasp appeal of her ban from the Rio Olympics.
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All Russian competitors from equestrian, shooting, judo, tennis and archery have been given permission to compete.
