“We would like to highlight the extremely shocking and disappointing statistics regarding the Russian weightlifters”, they said.
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The other 11 cyclists were cleared to compete, as were 16 wrestlers.
The IOC executive committee decided not to ban the Russian team.
The coach, Alexander Kuznetsov, named his athletes in a letter to International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, expressing his outrage at the ruling made – a letter seen by Russian news agency TASS. The man implicated himself in state-sponsored doping in a damning report by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren also continued his policy of questioning its veracity.
“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 a statement by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).
The bans brought the total of Russian athletes barred from Rio to 115 from an original team of 387.
The International Weightlifting Federation on Friday banned the eight-strong weightlifting team, saying Russian athletes have to assume collective responsibility following positive results of seven dope tests which have been re-examined from past Olympics.
Volunteers stand near a set of Olympic Rings at Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, July 29, 2016.
Russia’s involvement at this year’s Olympics will forever be tarnished.
According to the report, the IWF will distribute the eight places reserved for Russian athletes elsewhere.
Two female weightlifters – Tatiana Kashirina and Anastasiia Romanova – were withdrawn by the Russian federation for earlier doping offenses.
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“They are going to Rio in an atmosphere of hate and they will compete surrounded by enemies. But suddenly we were confronted with the problem that this could not be considered as global testing”, Mutko said, citing the testing criteria established by the IOC for each athletes’ participation in Rio.
