The IOC’s decision adheres to WADA’s recommendation to ban all athletes submitted by the Russian Olympic Committee and the Russian Paralympic Committee for competition in Rio, limiting participation to Russian nationals who compete under a neutral flag.
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The IOC’s decision comes despite a call by the World Anti-Doping Agency for a blanket ban in response to an independent report that said Russian Federation has been operating a state-sponsored doping programme since 2011 until 2015.
Russia’s entire track and field squad had already been banned from the Olympics by athletics’ governing body the IAAF over an earlier WADA report which detailed “state-supported” doping.
Asked how he would respond to critics accusing the IOC of treating Russian Federation too softly, Bach said: “read the decision”, stressing that the ROC was being treated more harshly than every other national Olympic committee.
International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) President Sebastian Coe has offered his support to the International Federations (IFs) who are now weighing up whether to follow their lead in banning Russian athletes from competing at Rio 2016.
“I am sure most of the members of the Russian team can meet the International Olympic Committee criteria”, TASS quoted Mutko as saying on Sunday.
This would further limit the amount of athletes from the nation at the Games, with long jumper Darya Klishina the only Russian track and field competitor due to feature in Rio.
Earlier, Mikhail Butov, the Secretary General of the Russian Athletics Federation expressed his hope that the IAAF would review its decision following the International Olympic Committee ruling.
But the I-O-C said Russian Federation is barred from entering any athlete who has ever been sanctioned for doping.
“This is in the interests of world sport, the Olympic family, because doping is clearly an worldwide evil and not just Russia’s problem… We are very grateful for the decision to consider that instead of collective responsibility, to look at the rights of individual sportspersons”. Stepanova was the whistleblower who helped bring her country’s massive doping system to light. Olympic leaders stopped short of imposing a blanket ban on Russia, allowing individual sports federations to decide who could compete. Several Russian TV networks were joined by news crews for broadcasters from around the globe awaiting the International Olympic Committee decision.
Never has a country been kicked out of the Olympics for doping violations.
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Members of its executive board met in a conference call yesterday and granted wide-reaching powers to the 28 individual federations that govern each sport to rule on which Russian athletes would be permitted to compete in their respective disciplines.
