The South Korean delegation to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics was greeted by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the opening ceremony Friday.
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Sergey Tetyukhin, member of the winning men’s volleyball team at London 2012, carried the Russian flag ahead of the athletes who received a nod from the International Olympic Committee on the eve of the opening ceremony to compete at the Games.
The 271 approved athletes come from Russia’s original entry list of 389.
A three-person International Olympic Committee panel makes the final decision for giving clearance to the athletes after recommendations were sent by their respective sports federations. “The majority of the sports have been admitted in full”.
A major revamping of the Olympic’s anti-doping system will likely be the next issue the global sporting community will wrestle. CAS said the rule “does not respect the athletes’ right of natural justice”.
CAS struck down some of the IOC’s rules, which the International Olympic Committee called “disappointing” in an email to SwimSwam.
Critics had called for the entire team to be banned to show systematic cheating is unacceptable.
Appeals by some athletes are expected, even after the games begin.
Zhukov, the Russian Olympic chief, said earlier that it was discriminatory that Russian track and field athletes without doping links were barred from the games, while U.S. sprinters with previous drug suspensions would be competing. A total of 19 rowers have been banned and only six will be competing, making up two crews.
“For clean athletes, I think the situation in Rio is tough to watch”, said Travis Tygart, head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency.
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“We had to follow the rules of justice and justice has to be independent from politics”, Bach said. This is destroying justice.
