Volleyball’s world governing body FIVB said that Russian athletes had been tested at the same level as all other countries and the majority of the testing had been conducted outside of Russia clearing the way for the both the men’s and women’s indoor and beach volleyball teams compete in Brazil. “There was little time to resolve it, and so it was likely to destabilize the situation”.
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Asked if the uncertainly over the participation of Russian athletes so close to the start of the Games was embarrassing for the IOC, Bach replied, “no, the IOC is not responsible for the timing of the (McLaren) report”.
Morozov said in a letter to FINA president Julio Maglione this week that he had never failed a drug test taken by Russian and worldwide experts. “It’s all perfectly civilized”.
Bach says the IOC “set a very high bar” by imposing strict criteria for worldwide sports federations to apply in deciding which individual Russian athletes should be cleared to compete at the Rio Games, which open on Friday.
Instead it chose a set of criteria for athletes to meet, including a clean doping past and sufficient testing at global events, that so far has allowed more than 250 out of the original 387 Russian athletes to be cleared for Rio.
Over 250 athlees have been declared eligibile by the federations and some Russian athletes have filed appeals against their bans.
But the International Olympic Committee ruled that she should not be allowed to take part as she had previously failed a doping test.
Bach said the International Olympic Committee wants to “shed full light on all the allegations” in McLaren’s report, including evidence that Russian officials replaced tainted urine samples with clean ones during the 2104 Winter Games in Sochi.
WADA had received information from whistleblowers a few years ago but did not act quickly.
WADA, which was created by the International Olympic Committee in 1999 to lead the anti-doping fight, and receives half of its funding from the International Olympic Committee, issued a long statement defending itself.
But WADA president Craig Reedie said the anti-doping body had acted as soon as concrete evidence of the Russian scheme came to light.
McLaren said he has provided information to WADA that names athletes whose urine samples were part of a state-run cover-up. The agency said it acquired new powers to investigate in January 2015.
WADA’s independent report compiled by law professor Richard McLaren was published on July 18, outlining systematic state-backed doping in Russian Federation and triggering a series of sanctions only days before the start of the Brazil Olympics on August 5.
A 2015 WADA commission, prompted by a German TV expose, found no firm evidence, and it wasn’t until May this year that a former director of Russian anti-doping laboratories spoke about the state-backed scheme in interviews with American media, WADA said.
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Responding to Bach’s swipe about supervision of the Russian doping labs, WADA said its focus is on the “technical abilities” of the labs.
