Boycotting the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games amid the ongoing doping scandal is not on Russian agenda, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
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The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is set to make a separate ruling on Thursday (Friday NZT) on whether 68 Russian track and field athletes should be allowed to compete in Rio.
“I do get the impression reading between the lines, however, that the International Olympic Committee is for some reason very reluctant to think about a total exclusion of the Russians”.
“The issue will be finally resolved by the end of this week, probably on Sunday”, Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov said yesterday at a meeting of the ROC in Moscow.
Former European under-23 champion Alexei Selyutin was banned for four years and Russian national champion Yekaterina Vlasova for 18 months, the Russian anti-doping agency says, citing the Russian weightlifting federation.
Some 387 athletes from across 30 sports were named in the Russian squad, which was published on the Olympic Committee’s website.
But he said noone can say all Russian athletes are cheats and added: “In the public’s imagination participation in the Olympics is for everyone”.
The Association of Summer Olympic Federations has also urged caution.
The IAAF suspended all Russian track and field competitors after an earlier inquiry, chaired by Pound, found widespread “state-sponsored” doping in athletics.
It also made some interim measures, opening an investigation into Russian officials implicated in the McLaren report and preventing them from being accredited for the Rio Games.
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach held a conference call with fellow officials on Tuesday to discuss the governing body’s next course of action and a statement released after that meeting confirmed disciplinary proceedings have been opened against officials within the Russian Ministry of Sport and others mentioned in the report released on Monday.
Mutko’s deputy, Yury Nargornykh, has been suspended along with four other leading sports officials.
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UFC heavyweight signee Bilyal Makhov spoke out against the the World Anti-Doping Agency’s suggested ban on Russia’s participation in the Olympics.
