On Thursday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld an IAAF ban on Russia’s track and field athletes from the games. Isinbayeva would be the Olympic favorite if she was allowed to compete in Rio. It said the Russians have the right to appeal to the Swiss federal tribunal within 30 days.
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The IAAF said then that it expected only a few athletes to meet criteria for exceptional eligibility and that any that did would compete as neutral athletes in Rio rather than under the Russian flag.
Following the report, president Thomas Bach said the International Olympic Committee “will not hesitate to take the toughest sanctions available” against individuals or organizations implicated in the McLaren report.
“We will now have to study and analyze the full decision”, the International Olympic Committee said.
“The door is open for the International Olympic Committee to decide, to determine even on a case-by-case principle whether these athletes are eligible or not”, CAS general secretary Mattieu Reeb told reporters outside the court headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Craven said: “The report revealed an unimaginable scale of institutionalised doping in Russian sport that was orchestrated at the highest level”.
CAS rejects Russia’s appeal against the ban of its athletes from track and field events.
IAAF President Sebastian Coe, who has declared the ban is crucial to protecting the integrity of the competition, said it was “not a day for triumphant statements”.
He vowed that the government would continue its work defending the “lawful rights” of the athletes.
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko suggested Russia could take the case to a civil court.
“I can express nothing but regret”. We will now consider our further steps. This is a judicial body but the IAAF’s behaviour and persistence cause indignation.
The decision Thursday will now see Russian athletics stars such as pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva and hurdler Sergey Shubenkov miss out on Rio. However, an appeal can be only launched on “procedural grounds”.
“The idea of collective responsibility from our point of view can hardly be considered acceptable”, spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
“Yet I don’t feel any support on the part of foreign athletes anyway, because they’re praying for the absence of Russian competitors from the Rio Games”.
That would mark the deepest crisis in the Olympic movement since the United States and Soviet boycotts of the 1980s, and would be a grave blow to a nation that prides itself on its status as a sporting superpower. Our relevant agencies will analyse the situation quickly and efficiently.
Two Russian athletes, Darya Klishina, a long jumper, and Yuliya Stepanova, a middle-distance runner, both of whom have been living in the United States and independently drug-tested, have been cleared to compete in the 2016 Olympics as individual, neutral competitors, but can not compete under the Russian flag. The IOC did not say whether any were medalists.
ROC official Gennady Alyoshin said the recent report of the WADA’s independent commission influenced the CAS’ decision.
WATCH: Russia operated state-sponsored doping scheme.
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Completing the line-up is Spain’s José Perurena and the Philippines Mikaela Cojuangco Jaworski, representing the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations and Association of National Olympic Committees respectively.
