The IOC announced on Saturday that its panel, consisting of Ugur Erdener, the IOC’s medical commission chairman, Germany’s Claudia Bokel and fellow IOC member Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., would review the decisions by the individual sports federations over the eligibility of Russian athletes.
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“Because of the seriousness of the allegations we could not uphold the presumption of innocence for Russian athletes”.
Russia’s lightweight men’s four, men’s and women’s eight and lightweight women’s double boats, have all been removed from the competition as a result of the decision of the FISA Executive Committee. After a debate lasting more than two hours, Bach asked for a show of hands, and only one of the 85 members – Britain’s Adam Pengilly – voted against his position. Russia’s track and field team has already been excluded from the Olympics, and other sports bodies are making decisions on which athletes from Russian Federation to allow into the mega event after the stunning allegations the country engaged in state-sponsored doping.
“The cynical “collateral damage approach” is not what the Olympic Movement stands for”.
In a surprise broadside, Bach said the uncovering of widespread Russian doping had shown up deficiencies in the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Bach said the “nuclear option” of a blanket ban was unacceptable. “The result is death and devastation…” he added.
“We are witnessing direct interference of politics in sport… and attempts to influence the decision-making process by political means”, Zhukov said.
The IOC also said any athletes specifically named in the McLaren report should be excluded.
At the last Olympic Games, in the Russian town of Sochi in 2014, the country won 33 overall medals – 13 of them gold – and emerged as the event’s most victorious nation, besting even Winter Games heavyweights like the United States, Canada and Germany.
The controversy over Russian athletes competing in Rio descended into further farce last night amid a conflicting series of rulings.
Argentine IOC member Gerardo Werthein accused WADA of “grand-standing”.
WADA President Craig Reedie of Britain, who is also an International Olympic Committee vice president, spoke only at the end of debate to say that he would respond Wednesday in his report about his agency’s activities.
Some 1.2 million tickets for Olympic events remained on sale ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony, which has been overshadowed by accusations that Russian Federation organized state-run doping. “I have always been and will always be a clean athlete and have been vocal in my anti-doping stance throughout my career”, she said in a statement.
“Some global federations… have now confirmed this fact: a lot of them do not have any reason not to admit Russian team and athletes”, Zhukov added.
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Former World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound has admitted there is a “disconnect” between Olympic sports and the anti-doping community – but is convinced it can be fixed.
