Russian Olympic Committee President Alexander Zhukov claimed there was a political campaign against Russia and cited “discrimination” against clean athletes not connected to doping.
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“As of today”, Zhukov added, “I think there is no other team that is so clean and so carefully controlled than the Russian one”.
“As a outcome, the CAS panel found that this is unenforceable as it does not respect the athletes’ right of natural justice”.
The McLaren Report recommended a blanket ban for Russian athletes for Rio 2016 but the IOC decided on July 24 that the global federations should rule on their eligibility in their sports and has since set up an independent panel to give a final decision.
These comments followed a long defence of the IOC’s response to the picture of cynical cheating in the world’s largest country that was painted by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren’s report for the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Athletes from other countries who have served previous bans, such as the American sprinter Justin Gatlin, are able to compete.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport has received what it described as a record number of cases this week, mostly from Russians contesting their bans from the Olympics.
“Nobody knows this, why an independent commission was created when WADA could’ve done the investigation in house…I was told by [former WADA director general] David Howman there was a concern Craig Reedie would somehow jeopardize the investigation…We basically could not trust him not to expose our investigation to Russian Federation”.
Speaking to the Russian team before they left for Rio last week, Putin said Russia’s Olympic ambitions had fallen victim to a politically-motivated plot.
The IOC opted not to ban all Russian athletes from the Rio Olympics after revelations of a wide state-backed doping programme across many sports.
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.
“I can tell you during my many, many visits to the Olympic village here I have been looking into the eyes of many athletes”, he said.
“We have to weigh all the arguments and we have taken our decision with a very good conscience”.
The Olympic torch continued its troubled path around the host city the day after riot police fired stun grenades and tear gas against protesters in a poor northern neighbourhood angry at the cost of the Games.
The IOC responded to the Russian doping scandal by placing the burden on global sports federations to determine whether Russian athletes should be allowed to compete in Rio.
This is not the first discord between the International Olympic Committee and WADA even though Reedie is also a long-time International Olympic Committee member.
Bach again defended this IOC executive board’s decision not to ban the entire Russian Olympic team from the Rio Games.
“People have misconstrued what was in that report, particularly the IOC and global federations”, said McLaren.
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The IOC also elected eight new members: Nita Ambani (India), Sari Essayah (Finland), Ivo Ferriani (Italy), Luis Alberto Moreno (Colombia), Auvita Rapilla (Papua New Guinea), Anant Singh (South Africa), Tricia Smith (Canada) and Karl Stoss (Austria).
