That course was rejected by the IOC’s executive board in favour of a compromise in which worldwide sports federations vet Russian athletes against a set of criteria. Two swimmers could be told on Tuesday whether their demand to be allowed to compete has been successful.
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Olympic officials will have their “fingers crossed” that Russian athletes allowed to compete in Rio are clean, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has told Sky News.
On Sunday, Bach defended the International Olympic Committee’s decision not to ban the entire Russian delegation from the Olympics, and said the IOC was not responsible for the timing of the latest WADA report, which came out on July 18.
Calls for a complete ban on Russian Federation have intensified since Monday when Richard McLaren, a Canadian lawyer commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, issued a report accusing Russia’s sports ministry of overseeing a vast doping program of its Olympic athletes. Instead of issuing a total ban, though, the International Olympic Committee established strict screening criteria for Russian athletes in Rio and left it up to individual sporting federations to determine whether those athletes can compete.
“As far as money goes, it’s hard to say how much would be enough”, said Reedie of hints his organisation’s £22.5m annual budget could be increased. After all, if they had done that, then Wikileaks would have published the names of the recipients who received the Russian bribes for the Sochi Olympics.
Bach said his call for an overhaul of WADA was “not about destroying structures but significantly improving a system”, creating a “robust and efficient system”. “The result is death and devastation”.
Whoever said that cities that bid for the Olympics do so to improve the lot of all their citizens?
Asked for a show of hands in support of the IOC’s stance, 84 of the 85 members raised their hand.
The IOC’s ruling 15-member executive board will meet via teleconference to weigh the unprecedented step of excluding Russian Federation as a whole from the games.
Like Bach, Israel’s Olympic committee member Alex Gilady asked why WADA hadn’t taken action against Russian Federation when approached for the first time by whistle-blowers a few years ago. The IOC also said any athletes specifically named in the McLaren report should be excluded.
“We are witnessing direct interference of politics in sport… and attempts to influence the decision-making process by political means”, Zhukov said. He cited whistleblower cases from Russian Federation in 2010 and 2012 and WADA’s failure to act sooner.
Canoeist Andrey Kraytor and wrestler Viktor Lebedev made their own appeals against the order along with swimmers Vladimir Morozov, Nikita Lobintsev and Yulia Efimova.
But the pair’s lawyer, Artem Patsev, told Press Association Sport that FINA has cleared them on appeal, citing a lack of proof from McLaren, and sent their case directly to the International Olympic Committee panel.
“It is obvious”, Bach said last week, “that you can not punish a badminton player for infringement of rules or manipulation by an official or a lab director in the Winter Games”.
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Armitstead faced a four-year ban after UK Anti-Doping found she had missed three tests in a 12-month period.
