Earlier in the day, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled against the appeal from the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and 68 national athletes thus closing the doors for Russian field and track athletes to the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Brazil, reports TASS.
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The Court of Arbitration for Sport will issue its verdict Thursday on Russia’s appeal to overturn the IAAF ban on its track and field athletes for the games.
Other doping officials urged the IOC to rule an unprecedented exclusion of the entire Russian team from the Rio Olympic Games.
The more recent report came at the conclusion of an investigation into widespread doping and concealment methods used by the Russian Olympic team.
Tatiana Grigorieva, a Russian-born pole vaulter who won Olympic silver for Australia at the Sydney Games in 2000, told Fox Sports Australia she agreed Russia should be banned, adding “it’s obvious by now that the system is rotten”. I should say it once again – the final decision will be announced by IOC President Thomas Bach.
The IAAF said it was “pleased Cas has supported its position”, saying the judgement had “created a level playing field for athletes”.
A spokesperson for the Kremlin Dmitry Peskov said: “I certainly regret such a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport which refers to absolutely all of our athletes [who filed the claims]”.
Finally, they said they will investigate all of the athletes who participated in the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said Thursday he regretted the CAS ruling, according to the Interfax news agency.
The IOC is expected to hold a second emergency meeting on Sunday.
The ball is now in the court of the International Olympic Committee to decide whether Russian Federation should be excluded from all sports at the Rio Games, starting on August 5.
At least two Russian athletes – 800m runner and doping whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova and US-based long jumper Darya Klishina – have already taken advantage of that decision, a BBC report said. They had made an appeal for being allowed to compete in Rio Olympics. Russia’s intelligence serve was also involved, the report said.
Although relieved at the CAS decision, IAAF president Sebastian Coe cautioned against triumphalism.
“If the accusations are true, Russian Federation not only ran a state-sponsored doping program but also essentially engineered a sweep of the 2014 Sochi Olympic medal count by hijacking the anti-doping testing program”.
The Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games could prove deadly for the city’s poor black people, a delegation of US activists from the Black Lives Matter movement and local activist groups warned Wednesday.
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Russian Federation has argued that some athletes, or individual athletes training outside the country, should be exempt – instead of a blanket ban. “It is our federation’s instinctive desire to include, not exclude”.
