Just days ahead of the Olympic Games the waterways of Rio de Janeiro are as filthy as ever, contaminated with raw human sewage teeming with risky viruses and bacteria, according to a 16-month-long study.
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The IOC executive board decided not to ban the entire Russian Olympic team from the Rio Games but ordered all individual sports federations to apply new criteria to decide which athletes could be allowed to compete.
“What is not acceptable is the insinuation of some proponents of the blanket ban that those who do not share their opinions are not fighting against doping”, Bach said. “And this is for very obvious reasons”. “Because of the seriousness of the allegations, we could not uphold the presumption of innocence for Russian athletes”.
More than 250 Russian athletes from the original team of 387 have so far been cleared to compete at the Olympics.
A lawsuit accuses the group trying to bring skateboarding into the 2020 Olympics of skirting anti-doping rules and giving favors to an International Olympic Committee member that led to the ouster of a rival group from the negotiating table. Some have filed appeals against their bans.
“It is important the International Olympic Committee takes the final decision based on independent advice”, said Adams.
“We are witnessing direct interference of politics in sport; an attempt to influence decision-making process for political means”.
He added that “there are still many far-reaching decisions we need to take in the near future”.
An IOC panel will rule which Russian athletes can take part in the Games, having initially stated individual sports’ governing bodies must make the decision.
The IOC has asked worldwide sports federations to decide which athletes can compete, but banned all competitors with prior doping sanctions.
Overwhelmingly, Sunday’s grilling concerned the IOC’s partial but not absolute sanctions against the Russian Olympic team following the report by Canadian independent investigator Richard McLaren on the extent of Russia’s state-sponsored doping program.
Bach also defended the IOC’s ban of whistleblower Yulia Stepanova from the Games. He also questioned why WADA had accredited the Moscow and Sochi doping labs at the center of the scandal.
Bach said the uncovering of Russia’s widespread doping had shown up deficiencies in the system run by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
WADA had received information from whistleblowers a few years ago but did not act quickly.
“We are not responsible for the supervision of doping laboratories”.
He added: “The IOC can not be made responsible neither for the timing nor for the reasons of these incidents we have to face now and which we are addressing and have to address just a couple of days before the Olympics”.
“This he did a really shocking way, the system is an attack on everything we want to represent”.
Ruggiero won a hockey gold medal at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, along with silver medals at the 2002 Salt Lake City and 2010 Vancouver Games, and bronze in Turin in 2006. Individual decisions on Russian athletes have been referred to relevant global federations.
WADA had demanded a blanket ban on Russian athletes in Rio following the McLaren report.
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Bach also defended the International Olympic Committee decision to reject a bid by 800-meter runner Yulia Stepanova, a former doper and whistleblower who helped expose the extent of cheating in Russian Federation, to compete in Rio as a neutral athlete.
