Two other Russian athletes who were initially banned because they were mentioned in the WADA report – swimmers Nikita Lobintsev and Vladimir Morozov – also reportedly were cleared to participate in Rio because of the new guidance, dpa reported.
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Three senior IOC members – Germany’s Claudia Bokel, Ugur Erdener of Turkey and Spain’s Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr – have spent the last 24 hours vetting the more than 250 Russian athletes declared eligible by the worldwide federations and a Court of Arbitration for Sport expert.
The first matches of the men’s football tournament will take place on Thursday, with Brazilian superstar Neymar spearheading the host nation’s quest for a first-ever Olympic football gold medal – the only global title to elude the five-time World Cup winners. He said it would be wrong to make individual Russian athletes “collateral damage” for the wrongdoing of their government.
“We need cooperation with the powers that be and we need to have the ability to carry out investigations”.
The court also ordered Kuwait and its Public Authority for Sport (PAS) to pay the International Olympic Committee about 10,000 euros ($11,229.00) in fees and expenses.
Other IOC members launched direct attacks on WADA and veiled asides at its British chief Craig Reedie.
“I think it’s not the reputation of the International Olympic Committee that has to be restored, it’s the reputation of WADA”, he said.
“I would like to say that all of it is not broken, part of it is broken and we should start identifying those parts that need attention”.
CAS rejected a challenge by 17 Russian rowers against their exclusion from the Olympics over doping, a tribunal official told AFP.
Those who win their appeals – and many legal experts think all those barred from competing here because of previous doping convictions have strong cases – could be added to the Russian delegation even after Thursday’s announcement.
FINA, however, has already confirmed that it has reversed its original decision to bar the pair on the basis of them being implicated by Richard McLaren’s report for the World Anti-Doping Agency about state-directed doping in Russian Federation.
“The decisions have been very unpopular in a number of countries and it’s hard for International Olympic Committee members to explain why this particular option was taken”, he said.
The news that some athletes were able to dodge bans appeared to egg on the Russian contingent in Rio, with almost the entire Russian Olympic team of over 200 showing up for a welcome ceremony at the Olympic Village where they raised their flag on August 4, ahead of the Olympic opening ceremony on August 5.
The two Russian women boxers who will compete at Rio are Anastassiia Beliakova (60kg) and Iaroslava Iakushina (75kg).
If successful, it said, the organization would launch a new case on behalf of eight weightlifters banned from the Olympics.
The WADA report had mentioned Sozykin, like many Russian athletes facing bans, in connection with Russia’s manipulation of urine samples to cover up positive drug tests.
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Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko announced earlier in the day that serious reformations were planned for the national weightlifting federation in the wake of the IWF’s decision to ban all Russian weightlifters from the 2016 Summer Olympics.
