February 16 – Lamine Diack admits there is a “serious crisis” in relation to the allegations of doping in Russian sport.
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IFs must not consider the absence of a positive anti-doping test as sufficient. It includes 800 athletes with values which indicate a suspicion of doping.
All three have previously served a doping ban.
November 4 – Lamine Diack is charged by French prosecutors and is accused of bribery and money laundering, along with his Papa Massata Diack, his lawyer Habib Cisse and Dolle. It recommends the IAAF should suspend Russian Federation from competition, and that five athletes and five coaches be given lifetime doping bans.
The decision has been endorsed by some national Olympic committees but drew criticism from athletes and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which said it would “inevitably lead to… lesser protection for clean athletes”.
November 11 – Diack resigns as IOC honorary member and president of the International Athletics Foundation.
IOC clarified that an athlete must provide evidence to the full satisfaction of his or her worldwide federation to gain entry into the Olympic Games starting on August 5.
If the International Olympic Committee banned Russian Federation from Rio, it would be the first time a country had been excluded since 1988, when South Africa’s International Olympic Committee suspension over apartheid was in force. The IAAF confirmed that the ban remained in place Sunday.
Russian Federation finished atop the medal standings at the Sochi Winter Games in 2014, securing 33 medals, including 13 gold.
Tygart said many athletes and whistleblowers had the courage to confront the culture of state-supported doping in Russian Federation.
In banning Russia, the IAAF created a rule change to allow athletes to apply for exceptional eligibility if they could show they have been subject to an effective anti-doping system outside of Russia and had not been tainted by the Russian system.
Tygart had led calls for Olympic officials to ban all Russian athletes from competing in Rio. He said 15 Russian medallists were doped. We have reversed presumption of innocence for the Russian athletes in this way making them assume collective responsibility for what has happened according to the McLaren report. He said the decisive factor had been the fates of athletes who would have been punished by a blanket ban despite having clean records.
The IOC executive said it would “like to express its appreciation for Mrs Stepanova’s contribution to the fight against doping and to the integrity of sport”.
The IOC made a decision to leave it to individual sports’ federations to decide on Russian sportspersons’ entry into next month’s Olympics.
Separately, an International Olympic Committee ethics commission ruled that 800m runner Yuliya Stepanova, who turned whistleblower on doping in Russian athletics, could not go to Rio even as a neutral – a decision that both WADA and USADA denounced as likely to discourage others from coming forward.
“It would be quite hard for us to think we should ban an entire team, which will include some cyclists who are not implicated in any of these stories we’ve been hearing”, said Brian Cookson, president of the International Cycling Union.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will take under control Russia’s implementation of the requirements set by the International Olympic Committee (OIC) concerning participation of Russian athletes in the Rio 2016 Olympics, President of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) Alexander Zhukov said on Sunday.
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If this turns out to be Thomas Bach’s defining moment, here’s what the leader of the International Olympic Committee will be remembered for: Keeping Russia as part of the club but losing the trust of thousands of athletes who thought that, maybe this year, they would get the answers they’ve been looking for.
