The IOC opted instead to put the responsibility into the hands of the individual sports to determine whether Russian athletes could compete. WADA issued a report that it found systemic doping among Russian athletes in many Olympic sports, leading to Russia being banned from worldwide competition.
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President Thomas Bach addresses a press conference at the Main Press Center (MPC) of Rio Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 31, 2016.
In a letter to the IOC, Stepanova and her husband Vitaly, however said the middle-distance runner had earned the right to compete after having been cleared by the world athletics federation, the IAAF, and praised for her actions.
Stepanov, who with his 800m runner wife Yuliya Stepanova gave details of the state-run doping programme in Russian Federation, said that despite attempts to clamp down, doping cheats will be in Rio when the Games start on August 5.
Bach meanwhile added the International Olympic Committee had no responsibility for overseeing the accreditation or supervision of anti-doping laboratories, which falls under WADA’s remit.
Bach also said the IOC decision to ban whistleblower 800-meter runner Yulia Stepanova is in line with the Olympic Charter.
The IOC earlier this month set criteria for Russians to be eligible to compete in Rio after revelations of state-backed doping in the country. The IOC Executive Committee decided not to ban the Russian team. “The allegations about the Sochi lab, that the Russian Ministry of Sport has orchestrated such a system, there we have taken what preliminary measures that we could, so that no official from this Russian ministry of sport, starting with the minister, can be accredited here in Rio”.
Stepanova, who had herself been banned in the past for doping, was refused a spot, despite being proposed to compete as a neutral athlete by the ruling body of global athletics the IAAF, along with any Russian athlete with past doping sanctions.
“The review panel is due to make a final decision in the coming days”.
In response, Sir Craig said the claims are “very aggressive towards WADA”, and suggested anti-doping had always been conducted in agreement with the sports.
Bach said the agency should have acted sooner on evidence of state-sponsored doping rather than release the damning report by Canadian investigator Richard McLaren so close to the games, which open on Friday.
“You can not punish a human being for the failures of his or her government if he or she is not implicated”.
More than 200 students spend their afternoons at the camp and away from the city’s harsh ghettoes and are exposed to sporting and personal development programmes with a view to discourage them from drugs, violence and creating positive opportunities.
“There are so many comments, I can not comment on everything”, Bach said.
Bach also defended the International Olympic Committee decision to reject a bid by 800-meter runner Yulia Stepanova, a former doper and whistleblower who helped expose the extent of cheating in Russian Federation, to compete in Rio as a neutral athlete.
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“It was not easy”, he said.
