His country’s track team recently appealed its suspension but lost in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
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Top competitors also addressed the audience in the glittering Alexander Hall, which included 114 athletes, the Russian Olympic Committee head, Alexander Zhukov, and the sports minister, Vitaly Mutko.
A poll published on Wednesday in the Estado de S.Paulo newspaper said most Brazilians are pessimistic about the impact of the Olympics on their country.
More than 100 Russian athletes, including the track and field squad, have been banned so far out of 367 candidates submitted to the governing bodies of individual sports federations for the games that begin August 5.
The IOC announcement means Russian athletes will be accepted by the Olympic organization to compete in Rio if they can meet strict anti-doping criteria, have no doping history and are given the green light by their own sports governing body.
“They have all been tested outside of Russian Federation, ” the ITU said in a statement.
But he then said responsibility for the crimes of the past should be “personalised, and all conscientious athletes should not be responsible for violations of others”.
The track team did, however, attend the ceremonial farewell with Putin on Wednesday, when the Russian president branded restrictions on Russia as “pure discrimination”.
According to the investigation, which was led by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren, the Russian government, including the Ministry of Sport and the Center for Sports Preparation, instituted an advanced program to circumvent the WADA drug testing.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed a political plot was to blame for banning Russian athletes from competing at the Olympic Games in Rio.
Notably, pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva, a two-time Olympic gold medallist and three-time world champion, has decided that she stands a better chance of adding to her illustrious resume by fighting Russia’s ban at the European Court of Human Rights than by competing at the Stars tournament.
“It is obvious that the absence of Russian sportspeople, leaders in many sporting disciplines, will significantly affect the intensity of the competition and diminish the spectator value of the forthcoming events”.
And he insisted: “The other sportsmen understand that the quality of their medals will be different”.
At least 105 athletes from the 387-strong Russian Olympic team announced last week have been barred from the Rio Games in connection with the country’s doping scandal.
By yesterday, the number of Russian athletes banned from Rio had grown to 108, with more expected. Russia’s men’s quadruple sculls crew were banned from Rio after one of their members, Sergej Fedorovtsev, failed a doping test in May.
The 63-year-old former KGB officer later bid the team good luck, calling them “winners” and promising them financial rewards if they win medals. The head of Russia’s trampolining federation, Nikolai Makarov, told TASS news agency that he had received “verbal permission” from the sport’s global authorities for the team to take part.
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Doping allegations have repeatedly been discredited by Russian authorities, including a spokesman for President Vladimir Putin who has previously referred to Yuliya Stepanova as “Judas”.
