Russia’s weightlifting team has been barred from competing at the Rio Olympics in August over doping offenses, the sport’s governing federation said on Friday.
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“The integrity of the weightlifting sport has been seriously damaged on multiple times and levels by the Russians, therefore an appropriate sanction was applied in order to preserve the status of the sport”, said an IWF statement.
Russia’s eight weightlifting berths in the Olympics have been offered to other countries.
The latter’s job is complicated by the fact that the International Weightlifting Federation has a rule disqualifying any country that is responsible for three or more positives from the re-testing of samples from the last two Summer Games.
Fighting back tears, Isinbayeva told Rio-bound Russian athletes: “Show them what you’re able to do – for yourself and for us too”.
“We would like to highlight the extremely shocking and disappointing statistics regarding the Russian weightlifters”, they said.
Of the 68 Russian track and field athletes banned from Rio, just one – long jumper Darya Klishina – was granted permission to compete next month after she proved to the IAAF that she is clean. For the women, Albania, Georgia and Moldova became eligible.
The incident follows a week of tension at the Olympic Village, where Australia and several other teams complained about unfinished and dirty rooms before moving in. The IWF said some of the Russian competitors had been named in a report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency which exposed evidence of state-backed cheating in Russia, Xinhua news agency reported.
Some federations have taken a tough line, with exclusions of much of Russia’s team from events such as rowing, canoeing and swimming.
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The IWF ruling took time because on Tuesday it asked the International Olympic Committee and WADA for “further clarification” on the recent IOC ruling giving individual sports federations the responsibility of deciding which Russian athletes can compete in Rio.
