Under the ruling issued Sunday, though, Ms. Stepanova, who has been branded a traitor by Russian officials, will not be allowed to compete in the Rio games, because she previously served a doping ban. The International Tennis Federation immediately cleared all seven Russian entrants following the IOC ruling.
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Isinbayeva, who herself has been prevented from going to Rio as part of a blanket ban on the Russian track team, tells Russia’s R-Sport agency that “at least one wise decision on track and field has been taken” in Stepanova’s case.
Russia also faces the prospect of losing some medals won in Sochi as the International Olympic Committee reviews all Russian athletes who participated in the 2014 Olympics and has requested that WADA disclose the names of Russian athletes implicated in manipulating doping tests.
If you think Russian Federation is grateful for at least having the Rio door jimmied open, if only a few inches, listen to their sports minister Vitaly Mutko. She wrote on Twitter: “The IOC have missed the biggest moment in their history to honour the dedication & sacrifice clean athletes make to compete at the Olympics”.
Russia’s track and field athletes have already been banned by the IAAF, the sport’s governing body, a decision that was upheld Thursday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and was accepted by the International Olympic Committee again on Sunday.
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 Russian Federation as part of the club, but losing the trust of thousands of athletes who thought that, maybe this year, they’d get the answers they’ve been looking for.
The IFs*, when establishing their pool of eligible Russian athletes, to apply the World Anti-Doping Code and other principles agreed by the Olympic Summit (21 June 2016).
In a vote described as taken “unanimously – with one exception” by International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, its Executive Board has effectively thrown a red-hot poker at the ruling federations of each of its 27 sports and ordered them to catch. “The decision regarding Russian participation and the confusing mess left in its wake is a significant blow to the rights of clean athletes”.
Still, he says “we don’t have time enough to do such a thing” like appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Mr. Bach said he believed some sport organizations would be able to render decisions in the coming days.
“Eight years of my life as a professional runner, and my entire professional career has been a farce, basically”, American runner Alysia Montano said earlier this month, in tears after tripping and falling and failing to qualify for what would’ve been a chance to earn the Olympic medal that still hasn’t come her way.
Russian athletes who are cleared for the games will be subjected to a “rigorous additional out-of-competition testing program”.
Under the measures, no Russian athletes who have ever had a doping violation will be allowed into the games, whether or not they have served a sanction, a rule that has not applied to athletes in other countries.
The criteria are “very tough, but that’s a kind of challenge for our team”.
Russian Federation is waiting to find out whether its entire team will be excluded from next month’s Olympics over the country’s doping scandal. Each global sport federation will have to individually review each athlete’s application to compete in Rio and the findings must be upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the highest appeals court in athletic circles.
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The governing body will instead allow individual sporting federations to decide whether Russians can compete this summer. Mr. Bach said Russian Federation agreed to cooperate with that investigation in what appears to have been the lynch pin of a deal allowing the country to escape a blanket ban. But many International Olympic Committee members were said to be reluctant to ban a country completely for the first time over doping.
