This follows a previous report by the same agency documenting rampant doping among Russia’s track and field athletes. He says it’ll be a case of “let’s go for this Olympics, maybe not as successful as it could have been, but the next one we’ll be back and we’ll be running the same system”. We have zero tolerance to doping.
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Mutko listed “great figures such as (pole vault champion Yelena) Isinbayeva who has an impeccable reputation” and the “new generation” of high jumper Mariya Kuchina and sprint hurdler Sergey Shubenkov as examples of athletes “who have sacrificed years of training to compete at the Olympic Games in Rio”. Here’s all you need to know about what a cop-out the IOC has committed: Moscow’s minister of sport reacted positively to the ruling, proclaiming that most Russian athletes will indeed qualify to participate – and march into Rio under the Russian flag.
“Zhukov assured that the Russian team at the Rio Olympics will be absolutely free of doping, saying that the team “is now the cleanest in the world”.
John Coates, the head of Cas as well as an International Olympic Committee vice-president, has confirmed he spent three days on the legal aspects of the IOC’s decision with a chair of the International Olympic Committee legal affairs commission.
Russian Tennis Federation President Shamil Tarpischev told Sputnik that Russian tennis players will be traveling to Rio, having met the International Tennis Federation criteria.
They have done nothing of the sort – and the clue is Yuliya Stepanova, who turned whistleblower on doping in Russian track and field but has been told she can not compete in Rio, unlike dozens of other cheats who will hope that stressed global federations run out of time to properly decide their faith.
Badminton World Federation (BWF) Secretary General Thomas Lund said: “We have had a rigid drug-testing programme, especially leading up to Rio 2016, and all four Russian athletes have been tested in and out of competition and their samples have been analysed outside of Russia”. “Its key tasks are to analyse and identify causes linked with doping”. In a clear sign of coordination, it was set up within hours under Vitaly Smirnov, a former Soviet sports minister and International Olympic Committee member.
“It is an attempt to apply the rules which unfortunately dominate in geopolitics to the sporting world”, he said, hitting out at what he called “short-sighted political schemers”. “In Russia there is not, and never has been, any state support for doping”.
More than 100 Russians from the 387-strong Olympic team have been banned so far from going to Rio de Janeiro.
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As she prepared to depart, handball player Anna Sen vowed to “fight for those athletes who were disqualified”.
