IOC president Thomas Bach said the findings showed a “shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sports and on the Olympic Games”. And there were some legitimate arguments about, say, the group of gymnasts or dozens of clean athletes in any sport that shouldn’t be kicked out because of the misdeeds of others. “This may not please everybody, but this result is one which is respecting the rules of justice and all the clean athletes all over the world”.
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In Moscow Sunday, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko voiced relief that the International Olympic Committee did not impose the countrywide ban called for last week by the World Anti-Doping Association in a wide-ranging report spawned by a Russian whistleblower.
WADA also recommended that Russian government officials be denied access to the Rio Games.
Wickenheiser, a six-time Olympian and a member of the IOC Athletes’ Commission, expressed her disappointment with the decision on her Twitter account.
It is leaving it up to global federations to decide which Russian athletes to accept in their sports.
Twelve days ahead of the start of Rio’s games, the committee announced the criteria that every Russian athlete must fulfill to compete.
“Ms Stepanova was instrumental in courageously exposing the single biggest doping scandal of all time”, Mr Niggli said.
It would work with individual sports to assess any impact on events at Rio.
It also ordered the immediate re-testing of all Russian athletes from the Sochi Olympics.
This included whistle-blower Yulia Stepanova, whom the International Olympic Committee thanked for her contribution to the anti-doping fight and invited as a guest to Rio, but banned from competing under a neutral flag because it decided merely deploring the use of drugs, having used them herself, wasn’t cause for an exception.
“(Banning) the entire Russian team would have unfairly punished many clean athletes”. You can see how high we set the bar. And I think it is taken in the interests of the unity of world sport and the unity of the Olympic family.
And tennis is the first sport to declare its Russians have met the criteria.
“I just want our athletes to stay focused, urging them to concentrate on their own performance, wipe Russian Federation from their mind”.
Russian sports bosses welcomed the decision and began looking forward to the the competition in Rio.
Welshman Davies, Olympic long jump champion at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics supported the IAAF’s decision to ban Russia’s athletics team.
“I am sure that the whole team that we’ve named will compete at Rio”.
Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov presented his case to the IOC board at the beginning of Sunday’s meeting, promising full cooperation with investigations and guaranteeing “a complete and comprehensive restructuring of the Russian anti-doping system”.
Any Russian who has served a doping ban will not be eligible for next month’s Olympics.
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Russia’s track and field athletes have already been banned by the IAAF, the sport’s governing body, a decision that was upheld Thursday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
