The IOC ruled out a total ban on Russian athletes competing in next month’s Games over its doping record, giving the responsibility to worldwide sports federations to decide whether individual athletes should be allowed to participate.
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These federations, according to the IOC, “should carry out an individual analysis of each athlete’s anti-doping record, taking into account only reliable adequate global tests, and the specificities of the athlete’s sport and its rules, in order to ensure a level playing field”.
More than 30 sports were affected by the cheating that went on during the 2014 Sochi Games and other major events, said the WADA report released last week by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren.
The New Zealand Olympic Committee has confirmed its support for the IOC’s decision not accept the entry of any Russian athlete to the Rio Olympic Games, unless they can prove without doubt to be clean.
“They set a very good example and I thought the International Olympic Committee, looking at the bigger picture, would then have banned the whole Russian team”, Davies told BBC Wales Sport.
“As far as the criteria announced for the Russian team on the eve of the Olympic Games they are of course very tough”, Mutko said.
Instead it said each sport’s federation needed to establish a competitor’s individual eligibility, a decision that flew in the face of recommendations by the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA).
Exeter athlete Jo Pavey has criticised the IOC’s decision to allow Russian athletes to compete in the Olympics.
IOC President Thomas Bach says the decision is about protecting innocent athletes.
Niggli also expressed disappointment that an International Olympic Committee ethics commission ruled that whistleblower athlete Yulia Stepanova could not go to Rio, even competing as a neutral.
In advance of Sunday’s decision from the International Olympic Committee, some individual governing bodies, including those that sanction track and field and weightlifting, imposed bans on Russian athletes.
Those who have previously served doping bans will not be eligible while the federations will analyze an athlete’s testing history.
Before Bach announced IOC’s decision, Russian Federation was on the verge of becoming the first country to be excluded from Olympic Games since 1988, when South Africa’s IOC suspension over apartheid was in force.
“The McLaren Report exposed, beyond a reasonable doubt, a state-run doping programme in Russian Federation that seriously undermines the principles of clean sport embodied within the World Anti-Doping Code”.
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Russian Federation will not receive a blanket ban from Rio 2016 following the country’s doping scandal.
