RIO DE JANEIRO Count Reid Priddy, the veteran of the USA men’s volleyball team, among those happy to see Russian Federation back to defend their gold medal at the Rio Olympics despite a doping scandal that sparked calls for a blanket ban.
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“It’s unfortunately just before the Games”, Reedie told The Associated Press.
But WADA president Craig Reedie said the anti-doping body had acted as soon as concrete evidence of the Russian scheme came to light.
IOC President Thomas Bach has issued another defense of his handling of the Russian doping scandal, saying the decision not to exclude the entire Russian team from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics was based on human rights and justice.
On Sunday, Bach defended the IOC’s decision not to ban the entire Russian delegation, and said the International Olympic Committee was not responsible for the timing of the latest WADA report, which came out on July 18.
Adding to his thinly veiled attack on WADA, Bach said the International Olympic Committee was not responsible for the accreditation or supervision of anti-doping laboratories in Russian Federation.
The other deputy chef de mission, Yasuhiro Yamashita, praised the welcome received by the team in Rio but he too had an eye on what could be learned from this Olympics for the Tokyo Games.
The IOC won’t allow Russians to compete in Rio if they had previously been banned for doping, were implicated in the alleged cover-up or had not been tested often enough internationally.
Russia’s cover-up scheme affected 30 sports and was in operation from 2010 until 2015, including during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and 2013 world athletics championships, the McLaren report said.
“Rio’s traffic woes are so serious that some members of the International Olympic Committee are regretting their decision to award the Games to the city, a person familiar with the matter said”.
WADA had received information from whistleblowers a few years ago but did not act quickly. “The IOC is not responsible for the accreditation or supervision of anti-doping laboratories”.
“So therefore the IOC can not be made responsible neither for the timing nor for the reasons of these incidents we have to face now and which we are addressing and have to address just a couple of days before the Olympic Games”, Bach said.
“That’s a very, very, very high percentage”, said Dr. Valerie Harwood, Chair of the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of South Florida.
But the IOC allowed Russian athletes with spotless doping records and sufficient global drugs tests to compete, saying it would be unfair to punish clean athletes along with cheats.
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The highly-paid NBA stars of the United States men’s basketball team will not be housed in the Rio Olympics athletes village, but rather on board a luxury cruise ship. “We have people who understand what it is like to go to an away Games and compete against the best athletes in the world”.
