The International Olympic Committee confirmed 118 athletes, or nearly one third of the Russian team, will be banned from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympic Games due to blood doping.
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In a verdict related to Russian rowers Anastasia Karabelshikova and Ivan Podshivalov, who had each returned from two-year doping bans in 2010, the Lausanne-based body claimed barring them from the Games “does not respect the athletes’ right of natural justice”. CAS sent their case back to the International Rowing Federation to decide on their eligibility “without delay”.
The IOC president said that with that step of respect for nature justice, they also send an optimistic note to clean athletes in Russian Federation that they can be successful exterior such a system.
Russian Olympic Committee chief Alexander Zhukov has confirmed that 271 athletes from the controversial nation will take part in the Olympic Games after being cleared by an IOC panel.
FISA banned almost the entire Russian rowing team – 22 of 28 rowers – for previous doping results and tests administered through the tainted Russian anti-doping system.
It is no wonder that the Russian media has been reporting their team could climb to 280 by Friday evening’s opening ceremony, an outcome that would only reinforce the widely-held view that Russia has got away very lightly. That led to the exclusion of dozens of athletes. The Wimbledon champion plays 35th-ranked Viktor Troicki in the first round in the 64-player draw, which was announced Thursday.
“Starting with Rio the sanctioning of doping cases at the Olympic Games will not be done anymore via the IOC, but it will be handled independently by the Court of Arbitration for Sport”, the IOC president added. It means that more than two thirds of Russia’s initial entry list of 387 athletes will compete at the games. He indicated the International Olympic Committee did not find it possible to apply to the Russian athletes the principle of presumption of innocence given the seriousness of charges brought on against them.
Russia, which narrowly avoided a complete ban from the Olympics following revelations of state-backed doping, had hoped to have between 272 and 280 athletes declared eligible for Rio after the International Olympic Committee review.
Bach opened the International Olympic Committee’s three-day general assembly by seeking formal backing of the members for the executive board’s handling of the Russian doping scandal.
“On top of all that, Russian athletes are going through additional testing which is taking place at the Olympic Village”.
The IFs to examine the information contained in the IP Report, and for such objective seek from WADA the names of athletes and National Federations (NFs) implicated.
Whistleblowers Vitaly and Yulia Stepanov said they contacted WADA for three years prior to the investigation.
The entire weightlifting team has also been banned.
“We have good news for the fans of the Russian Olympic team”, he said.
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“It was only when CBS 60 Minutes and the New York Times, on May 8 and 12, 2016 respectively, published the allegations from the former director of the Moscow and Sochi laboratories, Dr Grigory Rodchenkov, that Wada had concrete evidence suggesting Russian state involvement that could be investigated by initiating the McLaren Investigation, which we did immediately”, said Reedie.
