Executive Board has appointed a three-member panel, which includes former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch, to make the final decision on Russian athletes’ participation in the upcoming 2016 Rio Olympic Games, IOC Director of Communications Mark Adams said Sunday.
Advertisement
The panel will examine every case in which a Russian has been cleared to play through a process that includes the worldwide federation governing his or her sport and an global arbitrator.
The IOC’s ruling executive board, meeting Saturday for the final time before the opening of the games next Friday, said the panel will decide on the entry of Russian athletes whose names have been forwarded to compete by their worldwide sports federations and approved by an independent arbitrator.
After revelations of state-backed doping, the International Olympic Committee said earlier this month that for Russian athletes to be eligible to compete in Rio, they needed to have been tested for drugs outside of Russia and have a clean doping record with no previous bans.
The IOC will make its final decision before the Games kick off on Friday, he stressed.
The move comes amid a doping scandal that has led to the exclusion of more than 100 Russian athletes connected to state-sponsored cheating.
So far, more than two-thirds of the Russian team is cleared to compete.
“Clearly we’re working on a very tight deadline”, Adams said.
He said the process would be completed by Friday, the day the Games open.
Advertisement
All Russian athletes sanctioned for doping in the past have been excluded from the Games.
