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IOC Panel To Issue Final Rulings On Olympic Bans For Russians

The IOC has set up a special three-person panel to make a final ruling on which individual Russian athletes are allowed to compete in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Those athletes are from Russian national teams of volleyball, handball, boxing, table tennis, synchronised swimming and equestrian.

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The IOC that individual sports federations should probe athletes implicated in the WADA report.

Any Russian who has served a doping suspension is automatically ruled out but others were also to be banned if they could not effectively “prove themselves clean”.

Earlier this month, despite allegations of widespread doping in Russian Federation, the International Olympic Committee declined to exclude the country’s entire contingent.

The move by the two Olympic medal winners was announced as the International Olympic Committee held two days of talks on fallout from the Russian Federation doping crisis.

About 70 Russian athletes left Moscow on Thursday for Rio de Janeiro to take part in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Vladimir Morozov and Nikita Lobintsev were part of Russia’s bronze-medal winning 4x100m freestyle team at London 2012.

The trio will take the final decision once Court of Arbitration for Sport arbitrators have reviewed the cases individually, International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams told reporters.

“We want to make it absolutely clear that we are the ones making the final call”, he said.

Stepanov, who with his 800m runner wife Yuliya Stepanova, gave details of the state-run doping programme to a German documentary released in 2014, said efforts to clean up sport had failed.

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The review is taking place amid a state doping scandal that has led to more than 100 Russian athletes being banned.

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