Rio de Janeiro: A Brazilian man has been arrested on terrorism charges just over a week from the Olympics after he posted comments online about the Islamic State group, his lawyer said Thursday.
Advertisement
But WADA officials have argued that the evidence of a systemic Russian government-sponsored doping program, along with efforts by Russian state officials to cover up doping violations by Russian athletes, should have been dealt with by imposing a blanket ban against all Russian athletes during the 2016 Olympics. “We have zero tolerance for doping”.
“We would like to get concrete requirements [from athletics’ governing body] to restore Russia’s membership, so that no one can hit reverse later and say we didn’t fulfill the requirements”, he said.
Even as the athletes’ charter flight was flying to Brazil on July 28, global sports federations continued to announce further bans against Russian athletes under strict new rules imposed in connection with Russia’s alleged government-sponsored doping program.
A ban against freestyle wrestler Viktor Lebedev, a former two-time world champion, and three cyclists announced yesterday takes the number of Russian athletes suspended from Rio to 112.
Zhukov said the final lineup of the Russian Federation team eligible for the Rio Olympics would be announced on either Saturday or Sunday and predicted it would feature over 250 athletes. He said the most likely cause was what he called “organizational problems”. “But nevertheless our team is strong”.
The IOC ruling left the decision on whether to clear individual Russian athletes up to the worldwide federations for each sports – provided they had no previous history of doping. This week he said: “We were mindful of the need for justice for clean athletes”.
“We have chosen to keep them in the draw, pending that validation”.
Three Russian competitors from table tennis and another three from taekwondo are also waiting to be cleared, as are 11 Russian boxers.
But senior officials for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) have complained that the International Olympic Committee has set a bad precedent by allowing any individual Russian athletes to compete at Rio. “The team in weightlifting is going to be small, probably of three athletes”, he said.
The world record holder, who required a medical exemption after he pulled out of the Jamaican trials with a hamstring strain, proved his fitness last Friday by running 19.89 seconds to win the 200 metres at the London Diamond League meeting. “We have set up a special anti-doping commission”, he said. “We cooperate with McLaren on all issues, without fail”.
Smirnov said: “We will welcome the arrival of the World Anti-Doping Agency and we rule out any attempts at interference by the state or other structures”.
“One US official told me the workers were unprepared, working with water on the floor, working with electricity and wearing no protection; wearing flip-flops”, Andrada said.
Advertisement
The Russian athletics federation head, Dmitry Shlyakhtin, and the pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, who had hoped to try for a third Olympic gold in Rio, addressed the crowd before the Russian national anthem was played to open the meet.
