Last month, the IWF said its Executive Board had chose to suspend for a year national federations that produced three or more doping violations in re-tests from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games – made possible by improved detection techniques.
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No matter that this resulted from a system that put pressure on her to dope, and that she had the courage to speak out against it later, at tremendous risk to her career – and, in Vladimir Putin’s police state, her life.
“We would like to highlight the extremely shocking and disappointing statistics regarding the Russian weightlifters”, they said.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), sport’s highest court, upheld that decision last week.
(CNN) The whistleblowers whose evidence was key to revealing the extent of Russian state-backed doping have slammed the International Olympic Committee’s decision not to ban the entire team, saying it is sends a signal to the sporting superpower can simply carry on as before.
On Wednesday night (NZT Thursday), government employees angry over delayed salary payments took to the streets in Angra dos Reis, a city near Rio de Janeiro, and confronted the procession carrying one of the Olympic torches.
Developers say they have sold just 240 of the 3,600 Olympic Village apartments that go for between 750,000 and 3 million reais ($230,000 to $925,000), as Brazil’s worst recession since the 1930s has dented demand.
Without the Stepanovs, it’s entirely conceivable that Russia’s Olympic team wouldn’t be experiencing its current turmoil.
French President Francois Hollande is flying out to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics next week to help support Paris with its Olympic bid.
“We are quite nervous”, Elena Prokofieva, athlete on the Russian National Olympic Swimming Team, said.
Some called it Russia’s “alternative Olympics”, but the Stars 2016 event in Moscow for the track and field athletes banned from Rio felt more like a school track meet, albeit with much faster times.
The UCI says the three riders who have not been cleared are “potentially implicated” by the World Anti-Doping Agency, whose report accused Russia’s of organizing a state-sponsored doping program.
“Following the Olympic Games (in Rio), Russian sport bodies will be reorganized, if needed”, the sports minister told TASS on Thursday.
Kazikov added that he was not sure how that compares to how often athletes from other countries are tested. Worldwide sports federations must now remove any athlete previously banned for doping or who was implicated in last week’s McLaren report alleging a mass cover-up of failed drug tests.
Russia’s head swim coach Sergei Kolmogorov told Russian agency R-Sport that swimmers barred from the games, including world 100-meter breaststroke champion Yulia Efimova, were at a pre-Olympic training camp in Brazil in the hope of a late reprieve to allow them to race in Rio.
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There was good news for Russia on Friday when the Russian Taekwondo Union said it had received notification from the World Taekwondo Federation that all three of its entries could compete in Rio.
