The IOC announced the go-ahead for 271 Russian athletes on Thursday night, about 24 hours before the opening ceremony.
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The IOC had decided not to impose a blanket ban on Russian Federation after World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) investigator Richard McLaren revealed widespread and state-sponsored doping in the country in a special report from July 18.
The Games’ ruling body said on Saturday those decisions would now be reviewed by an independent panel consisting of Ugur Erdener, the IOC’s medical commission chairperson, Germany’s Claudia Bokel and fellow International Olympic Committee member Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr.
Igor Kazikov, the head of Russia’s Olympic delegation, told the Russian news agency Tass that the International Olympic Committee has ruled in favour of the swimmers Yuliya Efimova, Natalya Lovtsova, Darya Ustinova, Mikhail Dovgalyuk and Anastasia Krapivina.
RIO DE JANEIRO Russian breaststroker Yulia Efimova said on Friday she would take part in the Rio Olympics, a day after winning an appeal against a doping ban, but there was no immediate confirmation from swimming’s governing body FINA. At least one sport, boxing, has a full slate of Russian participants.
Several worldwide federations announced separately that they had received final approval for Russian entries, including boxing, judo, equestrian, volleyball, golf and gymnastics.
At the same time, it advised the relevant global federations to ban those athletes that had earlier been disqualified for doping, as well as those mentioned in McLaren’s report.
But dozens of would-be Olympians from Russian Federation remained in limbo as CAS sorted through their appeals. In 2011, it annulled the IOC’s so-called “Osaka rule”, which would have barred any athlete who had received a serious doping punishment from the subsequent Olympics.
Russian Federation vowed to win a hatful of medals and hit out at the expulsion of some of their top athletes yesterday as they announced their smallest Olympic team in 104 years after a major doping scandal.
Another five athletes – three track cyclists, a wrestler and a canoeist – will know by Friday if they can take part in the Rio Games. “I think this tense atmosphere has done us some good”.
Thomas Bach, said that it was important not to deprive the the Russian athletes the chance to prove their innocence, despite the damaging McLaren report on State-sponsored doping in the country.
Bach meanwhile said the first Olympic Games staged in South America had helped transform Rio de Janeiro, despite the failure to deliver certain infrastructure promises and a pledge to clean up the city’s heavily polluted Guanabara Bay. “Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko in a statement expressed his gratitude to the IOC.He said” It was objective and taken in the interest of world sport and unity of the Olympic family. “We had to respect basic principles of natural law”.
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In the other Group A match in Brasilia, Iraq and Denmark also played to a scoreless draw, leaving all four teams tied.
