“We expect [to have] a decision within seven days on the participation of Russian competitors in Rio”, said International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau.
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WADA, the German Olympic committee and anti-doping bodies across the globe have backed calls for Russia’s outright ban from Rio.
At an emergency IOC Executive Board meeting in Switzerland, the day after the independent report detailed a systematic and state-run doping program in Russian Federation, members fell short of an immediate ban.
“While it’s true that athletes from many nations have been caught doping, the nature and scope of Russia’s alleged offenses are unusually egregious”, the report said.
The Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport will pass its verdict on a lawsuit filed by the Russian Olympic Committee in which it challenged a discriminatory principle, which the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) had used in considering the athletes’ individual bids for participation in international competitions, such as a requirement to reside overseas.
Senior sports and political leaders in Moscow have also questioned the credibility of McLaren’s key witness, the former boss of Russia’s anti-doping lab Grigory Rodchenkov, who admits he was central to the cheating scheme. A total of 386 athletes, including 68 field and trackers, entered the list of the Russian Olympic team for the 2016 Summer Games in Brazil, but the roster is still has to be approved by the Russian Olympic Committee, Alexander Zhukov, the committee’s president, said on Wednesday.
The WADA report, compiled by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, investigated allegations that the Russian government directed, controlled and oversaw the manipulation of the doping control process at the Sochi Olympics and Paralympics.
Athletes included in the chemical cover-up were track and field competitors, cyclists, wrestlers, lifters and swimmers. The CAS decision is due on Thursday. After the Olympics, elections will be held in all the global federations and Russian representatives will be mostly deleted from lists.
In addition, the IOC Executive Board supported the announcement of the Olympic Summit on 21 June 2016 to reverse the “presumption of innocence” of athletes from Russian Federation with regard to doping.
Only the entire team will compete under the Russian flag, Zhukov stressed.
“These boycotts just lead to a breakup of the Olympic movement”, he told the AP.
Pound is a former head of WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency), and believes a ban is the right course of action because the McLaren report had failed to determine the innocence of any Russian Federation athletes under the umbrella of state doping.
“Russia will not take part in boycotts”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a statement mixing acceptance, defiance and denial, claiming the report is based on “the testimony of one man with a scandalous reputation”, and questioning whether McLaren’s findings can be “weighty and trustworthy”.
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FISA has written to the International Olympic Committee to ask if there is a deadline for the re-allocation of any possible quota slots if there would be a blanket ban on the Russian team or any other ban.
