On Sunday, the International Olympic Committee rejected the idea of a blanket ban on Russia at the Rio 2016 Games, ruling that individual sports federations should decide whether Russian athletes are eligible to compete.
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While the IAAF’s ban on Russia’s 67-member athletics team remains – over a state-backed system of doping – the International Olympic Committee has opted to leave decisions on individuals’ participation to the relevant sporting federations.
Wada also recommended that Russian government officials be denied access to the Rio Games.
That report, produced by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren, described a campaign of doping and cover-ups over a span of time that centers on the Sochi Winter Olympics hosted by Russian Federation in 2014. Any Russian athletes accepted for Rio will be subject to a rigorous additional testing programme. And I think it is taken in the interests of the unity of world sport and the unity of the Olympic family.
“The fight against doping in sport requires strong global leadership, none more so in this case, where the integrity of an entire Olympic and Paralympic Games is at stake”.
International Olympic Committee’s decision not to ban Russian Federation from the Rio Games over state-run doping divided international sports leaders Sunday with the opening ceremony 12 days away.
“We have balanced on the one hand, the desire and need for collective responsibility versus the right to individual justice of every individual athlete”, Bach said.
The decision was taken against the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) recommendation. “In this way, we protect these clean athletes because of the high criteria we set to for all the Russian athletes”.
With less than three weeks to go until the opening ceremony, the Russian track team now seem unlikely to get the chance to compete at the Olympics.
“At the end of the day, Russians are not the only sportsmen or women who have been found doping”.
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.
The Association of National Olympic Committees also backed the IOC, with ANOC president Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah saying an all-out ban “would have unfairly punished many clean athletes”.
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Last week an independent WADA commission presented a report based on the results of its investigation into allegations that dozens of Russian athletes used performance-enhancing drugs at the 2014 Winter Olympics. On that month IAAF temporarily banned Russia Athletics Federation immediately.to lift the ban Russia Athletics Federation applied to IAAF.
