But the International Olympic Committee did tell the various sporting federations to take a close look at the Russians, and as they’ve done that, the number of ineligible Russians kept rising.
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All but one – Adam Pengilly of Britain – voted their approval.
Bach insisted the International Olympic Committee could not be held responsible for the timing of the McLaren Report and the subsequent scramble to assess the eligibility of Russian athletes to compete at the Rio Olympics, which start on Friday, and suggested WADA could have acted sooner on evidence provided by Russian whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova.
Russian sports chief Alexander Zhukov has delivered a forceful defence of Russia’s right to compete at the Rio Games, saying it would be a “real tragedy” if any of the team were sent home.
Calls for a blanket ban grew after Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, who was commissioned to investigate by the World Anti-Doping Agency, issued a report accusing Russia’s sport ministry of orchestrating a vast doping scheme involving athletes in more than two dozen winter and summer sports.
There is no punishing a person for the violations committed by the government if he or she is uninvolved in these violations, and this very principle was applied, Bach said.
“The result is death and devastation”, he said at the morning session.
“This is not what the Olympic Movement stands for”.
It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Olympic Games has been badly tarnished, if not irrevocably damaged, by the scandal engulfing Russian Federation prior to these Games. “What is therefore not acceptable is the insinuation by some proponents of this nuclear option, that anyone who does not share their opinion is not fighting against doping”.
WADA says that information needed to be released.
But he added that the Brazilian authorities had acted quickly in recent months and “we are more confident than ever that we will have a great Olympic Games a la Brazil”. We need through WADA the cooperation with the world governments. Many argue it would be a retrograde step to give the International Olympic Committee more control over anti-doping.
Bach says “this is not about destroying structures, this is about improving significantly a system in order to have a robust and efficient anti-doping system so that such a situation that we face now can not happen again”.
Argentine member Gerardo Werthein added: “At times WADA has seemed to be more interested in publicity and self-promotion rather than doing its job as a regulator”. “He assured me he wasn’t speaking about me and he maybe overstated his case”.
“I’d like to see more funding going into education”.
“I have to find out the additional things people want me to do”.
“They have failed us, they have failed sport, they have failed the movement and it has absolutely taken the gloss off the Olympic Games”. We may disagree how we get there but we all work toward the same goal of protecting clean athletes.
“The arrow’s left the bow”, he said.
The first Games on the South American continent are due to start on August 5 and organisers are still frantically rushing to prepare venues.
However, the IOC executive board ruled that Kuwaiti athletes who qualify for the games would be allowed to compete as independent athletes under the Olympic flag.
A string of appeals against bans already imposed on Russian competitors also threatened to derail the launch of Rio 2016, the build-up to which has been marred by fallout from arguably the worst drugs scandal in history.
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Crime is rife in the city and more than 85,000 security personnel will be deployed to make sure athletes and visitors enjoy the Games in safety.
