Instead, the International Olympic Committee asked individual sports federations to determine which Russian athletes would be cleared to compete.
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The three-member panel is made up of Ugur Erdener, president of World Archery and head of the IOC medical and scientific commission, Claudia Bockel of the IOC athletes commission, and Spanish IOC member Juan Antonio Samaranch.
Last month, the IWF said its Executive Board had chose to suspend for a year national federations that produced three or more doping violations in re-tests from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games – made possible by improved detection techniques. Aside from the weightlifting team, the individual bodies for track and field, swimming and rowing have also imposed bans on Russian athletes.
WADA has given the names to sports federations, and with the opening ceremony looming on Friday more than 117 Russian athletes of the 387 initially announced by the Russian Olympic Committee have been excluded.
Stepanov said he had expected the IOC decision because the worldwide body “will not support anyone who betrays doping or corruption”.
Mutko said: “CAS now works 24 hours a day, so today or tomorrow we will support our athletes and try to get them restored to the team”.
But it now says the newly convened panel “will decide whether to accept or reject that final proposal”.
He wrote in an open letter on Facebook: “Throughout the last 6 years I’ve been drug tested by doping control agencies at least once a month”.
The IWF said some of the Russian competitors had been named in a report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency which exposed evidence of state-backed cheating in Russia.
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said Friday that 272 of the country’s original 387-strong team had been approved by global sports federations to compete in Rio.
Kashirina and Romanova both had their nominations withdrawn by the Russian Olympic Committee due to prior anti-doping rule violations, added the IWF statement.
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The IOC stopped short of applying a blanket ban in a move criticised by Wada and others, while swimmers Vladimir Morozov and Nikita Lobintsev have become the first Russian athletes to appeal against their ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
