He said the IOC decision not to impose a blanket Russian ban, and instead have federations insure that no one implicated in the report competes in Rio, “has resulted in a deluge of requests to provide information to the IFs (international federations); Russian national federations; the Russian Olympic Committee; the Russian Paralympic Committee and individual Russian athletes”.
Advertisement
WADA has given the names to sports federations, and with the opening ceremony looming on Friday more than 117 Russian athletes of the 387 initially announced by the Russian Olympic Committee have been excluded.
The panel consists of Juan Antonio Samaranch, the Modern Pentathlon President, Claudia Bokel, the athletes’ commission chairperson, and medial comissioner Ugur Erdener.
A three-strong International Olympic Committee panel will have the final say on Russian competitors’ eligibility for this summer’s Rio Games.
The IOC earlier this month set criteria for Russians to be eligible to compete in Rio after revelations of state-backed doping in the country.
Morozov said in a letter to FINA president Julio Maglione this week that he had never failed a drug test by Russian and global experts. “I am sure that in a justice-driven system I have full right to take part in the Olympic Games”. Athletes who have already been ruled out by their IF and not granted CAS approval will not be put forward to the panel.
Athletics was the first sport touched by the doping controversy.
Russia’s entire weightlifting team has been banned by the International Weightlifting Federation from the Rio 2016 Olympics.
Advertisement
WADA has said it did not have the power to act on the information and insisted that its priority was to protect Stepanov and his wife Yulia Stepanova, who are now living in hiding in the United States. “There has never been a clean Olympics and there is no reason to believe that Rio will be clean”, he told O Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper. “It is about individual athletes”, Adams said.
