The CAS panel did not do so, saying that the ROC can not nominate track and field athletes to compete in Rio who are not eligible to participate under IAAF competition rules.
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The IOC is expected to reach a final decision on Sunday and has said it will take the CAS ruling into account. He will run his first 200m race of the season on Friday night (22 July) in preparations for an attempt to break his own world record of 19.19secs in Rio.
An IAAF rule to create Olympic exceptions for a select few Russian athletes caused unease for the appeal judges.
But the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) has ruled it can stand.
The ruling could mean the entire Russian Olympic team is banned from the games, a potentially devastating blow to a nation that prides itself on its worldwide sporting prowess.
“I didn’t come into this sport to stop athletes from competing”, he said.
Tatiana Grigorieva, a Russian-born pole vaulter who won Olympic silver for Australia at the Sydney Games in 2000, told Fox Sports Australia she agreed Russia should be banned, adding “it’s obvious by now that the system is rotten”.
“Thank you everyone for the funeral of track and field athletics”, Isinbayeva told the Tass news agency. “It’s a pure political decision”.
“Now it is for the International Olympic Committee to determine if these athletes can be confirmed or not”, he said. Two-time Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva will not pursue her career in sport if she is banned from competing at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, she wrote on her page in the VKontakte (VK) social networking site on Thursday.
A ban from Rio could be the incentive needed for Russia to take action, according to hammer thrower Sergei Litvinov, a strident anti-doping voice on the Russian team. “We will now have to study and analyze the full decision”, the International Olympic Committee the said in a statement.
“The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has taken a strong stance on upholding the World Anti-Doping Code without fear and favour and is pleased that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has supported its position”, the IAAF said in its statement.
It should be recalled that the Russian track and field athletes were banned from global competition in November previous year after an independent commission set up by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) found rampant state-sponsored doping among Russian athletes.
Sharp-tongued Isinbayeva furiously lobbied against Russia’s suspension, decrying the blanket ban as a breach of her human rights and taking a lead role in pleading Russia’s case at the CAS. With the track ban upheld, however, the option remains open. Litvinov says the next step for global authorities should be to investigate what he believes are Russian-style organized doping schemes in other countries.
He told The Associated Press that Russian athletics officials failed to act on doping in time and hopes “that this situation can encourage the management” to push through reforms.
At a competition near Moscow that had been scheduled as a final tune-up before the games, most athletes saw the ruling as fundamentally unjust, and based on unfair allegations of mass doping and government cover-ups.
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“I want all (doping) systems to be shut down”.
