“Clearly, the absence of Russian athletes who were leaders in some of the sports will affect the competition”.
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A keen sportsman, the 63-year-old former KGB officer later bid the team good luck, calling them “winners” and promising them financial rewards if they win medals.
Putin spoke while standing alongside two-time Olympic pole-vaulting champion Yelena Isinbayeva, the most high-profile of the 67 track-and-field athletes expelled from the Games. The doping controversy exceeded legal bounds and common sense, causing “undeserved suffering” for some on the team, he said.
The International Olympic Committee ruled on Sunday that Russians who had previously been banned for doping could not compete at Rio.
More than 100 athletes from what was originally a 387-strong team have been barred from competing in Rio by global sports federations under sanctions which most Russian athletes consider unfair.
Earlier this week, the International Associations of Athletics Federations upheld a full suspension of the Russian track delegation in light of overwhelming evidence of state-sponsored doping.
The 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, are set to kick off Friday, Aug. 5, and fans around the world are ready to let the games begin. Yet the banned athletes include Yulia Stepanova, who blew the whistle on her country’s cheating.
Putin claimed that there was a deliberate campaign targeting Russian athletes based on double standards, according to BBC News.
Sixteen Russians from its fencing team have though been cleared, the sport’s governing body said.
To be sure, officials have barred the vast majority of applicants from Russia’s tainted track and field team.
Bach said he expects any problems to be sorted out when he landed in Rio and made a trip to the village just nine days ahead of the opening ceremony.
Eleven weightlifters, including three Russian medalists, tested positive for banned drugs in the latest retests of samples from the 2012 London Olympics, the International Weightlifting Federation said. Putin complained after the doping report was published July 18 that sport was being turned into a tool of “geopolitical pressure”.
Germany’s olympic discus champion Robert Harting verbally attacked IOC president Thomas Bach, calling his compatriot “part of the doping system, not the anti-doping system”. These rulings must still be ratified by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Meanwhile, Russia will still appear at the Rio Olympics in most other sports after the International Olympic Committee last week opted against a blanket ban of Russians at the Games, despite evidence from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) of doping in other sports.
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And now, with less than two weeks to go before the 2016 Summer Olympics get underway in Rio de Janeiro, the International Olympic Committee has announced Russia’s punishment: an ever-so-gentle slap on the wrist.
