Following a meeting on 24 July 2016, the IOC Executive Board (EB) declared that Russian athletes would only be accepted as eligible for the Rio 2016 Games if they met a set of stringent criteria, including individual analysis of each athlete’s individual anti-doping record.
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“It’s going to be a handsome ceremony, very Brazilian, very Olympics, and very sportsmanlike”, Rio 2016 spokesman Mario Andrada told a press conference on Thursday.
A final ruling on the entry of Russian athletes in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics is coming down to the wire.
Russia’s track and field team remains barred following an earlier decision by the IAAF.
That course was rejected by the IOC’s executive board in favour of a compromise in which global sports federations vet Russian athletes against a set of criteria.
McLaren’s investigation revealed stunning levels of cheating, across nearly every Olympic and Paralympic sport in Russian Federation, and immediately prompted calls from anti-doping agencies, athletes’ groups and even governments to throw the sporting superpower out of the Games.
A few members did question the International Olympic Committee decision to keep Russian whistleblower Yulia Stepanova – an 800-meter runner who helped expose systematic doping in her homeland – out of the games. The IOC has no authority over the testing program of athletes outside the Olympic Games.
The IOC issued new guidance on Tuesday, World Sailing said, advising an athlete should not be considered as “implicated” if the McLaren list does not refer to a prohibited substance which would have given rise to an anti-doping rules violation.
He said he was “encouraged” by International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach’s support and said there was now acceptance at the “very highest level in Russia” of the need to change.
The White House says U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will lead the U.S. delegation to the games.
Bach said the “nuclear option” of a blanket ban was unacceptable.
“I believe it’s very unfair that such athletes like Yelena Isinbayeva and Sergei Shubenkov, without any doping history, absolutely clean, can not participate in the Olympics, however many athletes including American runners like for example (Justin) Gatlin and Tyson (Gay), who were punished for doping many times, will take part in these Olympics”, he said. He said it would be wrong to make individual Russian athletes “collateral damage” for the wrongdoing of their government. “I think there will be an athletes’ revolt, a public revolt, maybe even the sponsors”. He said his organization could not be blamed for the timing of the McLaren report, published just two weeks before the commencement of the Rio Games, or the fact that information previously offered to WADA was not followed up.
Wrestling accounted for 28 of the 312 positive tests that were covered up by Russian Federation between 2011 and 2015, according to McLaren’s report.
“Each and every sportsperson was checked and tested, and the worldwide federations checked them and they concluded and made the decision that there were negative. a huge amount of negative test results that indicates that the huge amount of sportsmen are completely clean”. “If I try to ban someone, they will take us to court and we will lose”.
Hundreds of Russian athletes are in Brazil for the Games, which officially begin Friday. But Nichols added that WADA can only make recommendations and has to respect the final decision of the IOC.
Calls for an all-out ban on Russian competitors were overruled by the IOC, which instead set a number of criteria, including a spotless doping record and sufficient worldwide doping test, for Russians to be cleared to compete in Rio.
A coalition of 14 national anti-doping agencies sent a letter to Bach saying the IOC’s initial response did not meet his pledge of the “toughest sanctions available”.
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Bach’s position received support from most of the speakers during the debate, although some questioned the International Olympic Committee decision to keep Russian whistleblower Yulia Stepanova – an 800-meter runner who helped expose systematic doping in her homeland – out of the games.
