The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Sunday chose to leave it to individual sports federations to decide on Russian sportspersons’ entry into next month’s Olympics, ruling out a blanket ban on the country’s Olympic body ROC.
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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has instead ruled that each individual sports federation should determine whether Russian athletes are clean and eligible to compete.
Australia’s government has questioned the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) leadership in the fight against doping in sport and said Russia’s participation at the Rio 2016 Games risks damaging the reputation of the Olympic movement.
Russia’s entire track and field team already is banned from the Olympics, and any Russian athlete who previously has been sanctioned for doping won’t be able to compete. Any Russian athletes accepted for Rio will be subject to a rigorous additional testing programme.
Rutherford, who will defend his Olympic title at the Games, which begin on August 5, believes the IOC has tried to satisfy everyone but ended up creating a “messy” situation.
“It was objective and taken in the interests of world sport and the unity of the Olympic family”.
Russian doping scandal: how did we reach this point? Rodchenkov told the newspaper that dozens of Russian athletes used performance enhancing drugs in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, with the approval of national sports authorities.
He added later in televised comments that he was convinced that the “majority” of the Russian team would meet strict criteria to compete.
Niggli also expressed disappointment that an International Olympic Committee ethics commission ruled that whistleblower athlete Yulia Stepanova could not go to Rio, even competing as a neutral stating that “WADA has been very vocal in supporting Yulia’s desire to compete as an independent athlete”. “Today we see a risky relapse of politics intruding into sports” he said, warning of a growing geopolitical “schism”. Many global Olympic officials and federation leaders have close ties to Russia, which has portrayed the exclusion of its track athletes and calls for a complete ban as part of a political, Western-led campaign.
Lead WADA investigator Richard McLaren said evidence showed a Moscow laboratory “operated for the protection of doped Russian athletes, within a state dictated failsafe system”.
“I am sure that most of the worldwide federations have no issues with Russian athletes”, R-Sport, a sports division of RIA Novosti news agency, quoted Mutko as saying.
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The International Tennis Federation has confirmed on Sunday that Russia’s seven nominated tennis players meet the IOC requirements.
