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IOC Appoints Panel to Decide on Russian Athletes Taking Part in Olympics

Adams said the process would be completed by August 5, the day the 2016 Olympics open in Rio de Janeiro.

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He said the IOC decision not to impose a blanket Russian ban, and instead have federations insure that no one implicated in the report competes in Rio, “has resulted in a deluge of requests to provide information to the IFs (international federations); Russian national federations; the Russian Olympic Committee; the Russian Paralympic Committee and individual Russian athletes”. The two swimmers were banned after they were named in a World Anti-Doping Agency-led report into doping in Russian Federation.

The panel will examine every case in which a Russian has been cleared to play through a process that includes the global federation governing his or her sport and an worldwide arbitrator.

The accusations of creating “a state-supported doping system” have been rejected by Russian authorities, who say that Russian athletes are being denied the opportunity to represent their country in Rio.

Rio’s troubled preparations for the Games, which start on Friday, also occupied the International Olympic Committee executive who heard on Saturday from chief Rio organiser Carlos Nuzman.

CAS has set up a base in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the Rio 2016 Games, and Morozov and Lobintsev have become the first athletes to bring cases there.

Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko said Saturday he expected 266 athletes to compete.

Any Russian who has served a doping suspension is automatically ruled out but others were also to be banned if they could not effectively “prove themselves clean”.

CAS said the appeals were filed against the International Olympic Committee and FINA.

The duo want the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to overturn the decision of swimming’s world governing body FINA to ban them for not falling within the IOC’s new criteria on allowing Russian competitors to compete.

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“It has always been the case in the Olympics”.

Russian Aleksei Lovchev competes at the 2015 IWF World Championships.                     Getty Images