It’s basically a great big big up-yours to the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and plenty of people besides them.
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Disappointment at the participation of Russian athletes is evident in London, where the Guardian newspaper had published an editorial calling for an “across-the-board Russian exclusion from Rio”.
Included in the development is the stunning futuristic Museum of Tomorrow (Museu do Amanhã) which protrudes diagonally into the sky from the old port of Rio de Janeiro as well as a new tramline.
Reports from Japan and Italy were more welcoming to the Russian team.
Isinbayeva watched from the sidelines, vowing defiance and legal action.
“In terms of an outside view, I guess it’s a given”, Bond told Reuters.
“I heard that there are many problems, like in the bathroom without hot water, or toilets that do not flush”, said Taku Murakami, a member of the Japanese gymnastics team.
Italian newspaper La Stampa agreed that banning everybody because of the transgressions of a few would be unjust. The report claimed Russia’s sports ministry, as well as its secret service, were complicit in concealing positive doping probes of Russian sportsmen by swapping samples or even destroying the evidence.
Worldwide sports federations must now remove any athlete previously banned for doping or who was implicated in last week’s McLaren report alleging a mass cover up of failed drug tests.
Athletes will have to overcome a presumption of guilt, but given the limited time left before the Games, and the influence Moscow can bring to bear, overtly and otherwise, on the various federations, this is a dragnet through which many Russians will slip.
The latest and arguably most damaging drug scandal to rock athletics looks set to see a host of Olympic medals stripped from their initial recipients and redistributed, with one of Johnson-Thompson’s on-track colleagues among those who has been a victim of a doped Russian athlete.
“It is now time to put all doubts aside: the Russian team is going to the Olympics”.
“For us, the OIC decision is ok”.
“No competition in the world can replace the Olympics, but nonetheless today we are finding a replacement for what they didn’t give us yesterday”, Shlyakhtin said before the sound system briefly broke down. It seems that was more convenient. “What they have approved so far is about 270 athletes”, Zhukov told journalists. Russian national coach Yuriy Borzakovskiy will oversee it. Tarpischev emphasized that no Russian tennis players were named in WADA’s recently published McLaren report on doping in Russian sport.
Russian Federation has made a decision to put together a tournament for the athletes who were denied the chance to compete at this year’s Rio Olympics due to, you know, years of systematic drug cheating. “For Russia and for the world it’s important to show that this has not buried us, that life continues, that we continue to compete and that Moscow supports its athletes”. “For me, it’s safe enough and I’m going to go”.
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Russian Federation had hoped to send 387 competitors to Rio and more than 100 have so far been banned from going. “Therefore, ITU will recommend to the International Olympic Committee that these six athletes be permitted to compete in Rio next month”.
