Russian Federation will immediately appeal the decision to ban all eight of its weightlifters from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics for doping.
Advertisement
A state poll on Thursday found 90 percent of Russians support President Vladimir Putin’s handling of the doping scandal.
Russian Rowing Federation head Veniamin But tells The Associated Press by telephone that he plans to go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport next week to try to overturn the ruling from World Rowing.
The IOC’s chief ethics and compliance officer, Paquerette Girard Zappelli, says “we will rely on the Brazilian authorities and their jurisdiction for criminal and security matters”.
Two-time Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva did not compete, explaining that her legal battle against athletics authorities over the ban had not allowed her to adequately prepare.
More than 250 Russian athletes from the original team of 387 have so far been cleared to compete at the Olympics.
“You can’t break Russians”, she said.
Some Russian athletes had flown to Rio in advance of the main delegation, including gymnasts and swimmers.
This leaves six more sports still to declare their decisions on Russian eligibility: boxing, golf, handball, table tennis, taekwondo and weightlifting.
“Today, as never before, we need to stay united and become a family”, the 40-year-old Tetyukhin said, ignoring what he called “provocations addressed at our team and our mighty country”.
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.
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. She also won five silver medals, including at least one in every Olympics between 2000 and 2012.
The 150 competitors included numerous 67 Russian athletes banned from competing at the Games after findings of state-sponsored doping, including the hurdler Sergei Shubenkov and high jumpers Ivan Ukhov and Maria Kuchina.
In doing so, the federation pointed to the multiple cases of doping by the country’s weightlifters.
Advertisement
Smirnov told local media Thursday that the new commission would be independent of the government, despite containing several senior figures with links to the Kremlin. Pressure for the full sanction followed a World Anti-Doping Agency report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren that accused Russia’s sports ministry of overseeing a vast doping conspiracy involving the country’s summer and winter sports athletes.
