Tomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee, greets athletes in the dining hall after moving into the Olympic village in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
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Speaking at a news conference five days before the opening of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Bach said a total ban on Russian Federation for systematic doping “would not be justifiable” on either moral or legal grounds.
“Every human being is entitled to certain rights of natural justice”, he said.
Five days before the beginning of Rio 2016 and it remains unclear which, if any, Russian athletes will be allowed to compete.
Morozov said in a letter to FINA president Julio Maglione this week that he had never failed a drug test by Russian and worldwide experts.
“No. And this is for very obvious reasons”, he replied.
The Rio Olympics will open, on August 5, in the shadow of Russian doping scandal which has made anti-doping fight at these Games the focus of attention. Some have filed appeals against their bans.
Asked how damaging the situation is, Bach replied: “I don’t think that this, in the end, will be damaging because people will realize we have to take this decision now”. “Imagine if we had not taken a decision, what limbo we would be in then”.
The panel will be comprised of Juan Antonio Samaranch Jnr, son of the former IOC president; Claudia Bokel, an IOC Executive Board Member; and Ugur Erdener, head of the IOC Medical Commission.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) had recommended all Russian competitors be banned after its independently commissioned report found evidence of a four-year “doping programme” across the “vast majority” of Olympic sports.
Bach defended the IOC’s decision, saying despite the criticism, his organisation was not emerging from this scandal with a black eye.
“The negative opinions are the ones most likely to be quoted”, Bach told reporters.
But he insisted the doping scandal would not taint Rio.
“The IOC is not responsible for the fact that different information was offered to WADA a couple of years ago was not followed up”.
Sir Craig, who is also a vice-president of the International Olympic Committee, claimed they acted following fresh allegations which emerged in May during an interview given by Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory to the New York Times.
Bach said the agency should have acted sooner on evidence of state-sponsored doping rather than release the damning report by Canadian investigator Richard McLaren so close to the games, which open on Friday.
The McLaren Report confirmed the accusations made by Rodchenkov, who claimed that up to 15 Russian Olympic medal winners at Sochi 2014 were implicated in a clandestine operation in which doping samples were switched for clean ones.
“If this system was applied like this, it’s an attack on everything we want to represent”. “The swimmers also request that the decision of the FINA bureau of July 25 2016, declaring both of them ineligible for the Olympic Games in Rio, be set aside”.
Stepanova, who had herself been banned in the past for doping, was refused a spot, despite being proposed to compete as a neutral athlete by the IAAF, along with any Russian athlete with past doping sanctions.
“You can not punish a human being for the failures of his or her government if he or she is not implicated”. These are complicated and complex questions on the legal and moral side.
“It was not easy”, he said. Smirnov recently headed an independent anti-doping commission set up by the Russian Olympic Committee’s (ROC) Executive Board.
Bach also gave an upbeat assessment of Rio’s readiness for the games.
He expressed support for South America’s first Olympics, whose build-up has been overshadowed by Brazil’s political and economic crises and concerns over Zika, water pollution, crime and budget cuts.
“As always, there are some last-minute challenges”.
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According to a study by polling group Ibope, 60 percent of Brazilians believe the Games, expected to cost more than US$12 billion and also hit by corruption investigations over contracts, will bring more harm than good.
