Following that check, “currently there is no evidence that the anti-doping issues within (ARAF) extend to the Russian Paralympic Committee or Russian Para athletics team”, the IPC said.
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“The IOC will initiate further far-reaching measures in order to ensure a level playing field for all the athletes taking part in the Olympic Games Rio 2016”, today’s IOC statement added.
Russian athletes and politicians reacted with fury to Friday’s vote, with sports minister Vitaly Mutko saying the IAAF should be disbanded and two race walkers immediately filing cases against the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The governing body’s 27-strong council unanimously decided at a meeting in Vienna on Friday to extend Russia’s suspension from global competition for doping offences, ruling that the criteria for reinstatement had not been met.
“The IOC has a big decision to make”, Briton Radcliffe said on her Twitter account.
The meeting comes four days after track and field’s world governing body upheld the ban, first imposed in November, on Russia’s track and field team for a “systematic and deeply-rooted culture of doping”.
It continued to say the board held a teleconference to discuss the decision, noting the report made by the IAAF’s task force in Russian Federation that outlined just how much work was needed before the sporting superpower could be trusted again.
An investigation funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency into allegations made by the former director of Moscow’s anti-doping lab Grigory Rodchenkov is now being led by Canadian legal expert Richard McLaren.
“I’ll be at the Olympic summit in Lausanne on Tuesday”.
Still looming heavily over the Russians is an ongoing WADA investigation into allegations made by Moscow’s former drug lab chief, Grigory Rodchenkov, that he was involved in a state-backed conspiracy to dope Russian athletes ahead of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and swap tainted samples for clean ones during the games.
McLaren, who is due to deliver his full report by July 15, has also looked into doping allegations surrounding the 2013 athletics World Championships in Moscow.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has labelled the ban “unjust and unfair” while pole vault star Yelena Isinbayeva repeated her threat to sue the IAAF and the International Olympic Committe for an infringement of her human rights if prevented from competing. The possibility of Russia’s entire team being excluded from the Rio Games has been called the “nuclear option” by former WADA president Dick Pound.
Rune Anderson, the head of the IAAF taskforce in Russia, on Friday spoke of “a very tiny crack in the door” for athletes training outside Russia in a “credible” system to compete in Rio, though not under a Russian banner.
Still, the IOC must decide the details of how those athletes would be represented, including whether they would compete under the Olympic flag or some other symbol.
Coe denied that caveat – which will also apply to Yuliya Stepanova, the 800 metres runner who became a whistleblower on the state of the Russian anti-doping system – was politically or geographically motivated. This, in effect, means athletes who train outside Russian Federation.
The WADA commission had previously accused Rodchenkov of covering up doping by Russian athletes and destroying 1417 samples.
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“So, we are now faced with critics claiming we have made an unfair decision on clean athletes in Russian Federation”.
