The CAS panel ruled that the International Rowing Federation (Fisa)’s decision to deny the rowers entry to the Rio Games was in accordance with the IOC decision of 24 July, which set out the criteria for the admission of Russian athletes to compete in Brazil.
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Bach also defended the IOC’s decision not to take the “nuclear option” of issuing a blanket ban on Russian athletes at the Games, stating that would be unfair to clean athletes within the country.
Russian Olympic Committee chief Alexander Zhukov said it was unfair that Russian sports stars such as double Olympic champion pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva would be forced to watch the games from home while past doping offenders from other countries, including top US runner Justin Gatlin, were able to compete.
Russia’s track and field team remains barred following an earlier decision by the sport’s governing body, IAAF.
But the International Olympic Committee is continuing to hear Russian cases, and more athletes could be allowed to compete before the games end.
The investigation delays allowed the International Olympic Committee president to claim that once the agency reported on its findings last month, the International Olympic Committee didn’t have enough time to determine whether it should ban all Russian teams, Robertson says in an interview with investigative journalism website Pro Publica and the BBC.
In another veiled criticism of WADA, IOC president Thomas Bach said: “Given our remit, it is not the IOC that is responsible for the accreditation and supervision of anti-doping laboratories”.
CAS rejected the athletes’ appeal to be granted direct entry into the games, saying it was now up to the global rowing and swimming federations to decide whether to let them in or not.
“We had to follow the rules of justice and justice has to be independent from politics”, Bach said.
The IOC has been roundly criticized by many anti-doping bodies, athletes’ groups and Western media for not applying a complete ban on the Russian team. “We had to respect basic principles of natural law”.
“We have broken the record for the number of cases registered, now we have 18 cases, in London we had 11 cases for the entire duration of the Games”, Reeb said.
Russian Federation initially planned to send 387 athletes to the Rio Games before the doping allegations.
“On top of all that, Russian athletes are going through additional testing which is taking place at the Olympic village”.
A key among them is the controversy surrounding Russian Federation, after a report from the World Anti Doping Agency accused the country of state sponsored drug cheating.
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He said the International Olympic Committee was neither responsible for the timing of the McLaren report, nor was it for WADA’s failure to act on the information regarding Russian doping it had received years ago.
