The International Olympic Committee on Thursday cleared 271 Russian athletes to compete in the Rio Olympics, a total that represents almost 70% of the initial list the Russian Olympic Committee had announced for the Games.
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IOC President Thomas Bach said a decision will be announced later Thursday, just a day before the opening of the games, following a review of the doping records of individual Russian athletes.
The IOC said in a statement: “271 athletes will form the team entered by the Russian National Olympic Committee (ROC) from the original entry list of 389 athletes”.
The respective governing bodies of athletics and weightlifting, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the International Weightlifting Federation, had already decided that no Russian athletes will take part in their sports during the Games.
These comments followed a long defence of the IOC’s response to the picture of cynical cheating in the world’s largest country that was painted by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren’s report for the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Minutes before confirmation arrived of the review panel’s much-awaited decision, Russian rowers Anastasia Karelbelshikova and Ivan Podshivalov had their appeals against their disqualification from Rio partially upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov said some other cases remained unresolved after investigations prompted by the discovery of a state-orchestrated plot to dupe drugs testers.
There remain question-marks over the Russian cycling team, with two cyclists definitely excluded and another three still awaiting a verdict.
The International Federation of Volleyball said Thursday that the 30 Russian players had formally received the green light from the International Olympic Committee as expected.
IOC President Thomas Bach again defended the decision not to ban the entire Russian Olympic team, insisting that athletes can not be punished for the wrongdoing of their government.
The decision could prompt worldwide federations who consider athletes that the Russian Olympic Committee did not put forward because of that requirement and re-examine their anti-doping record to determine if they are eligible to compete in Rio. “You can not answer to a violation of a law by another violation of a law”.
That is a step that 17 of their team-mates failed to navigate, as World Rowing applied the IOC’s criteria more strictly than any other global federation apart from the worldwide Association of Athletics Federations. This is destroying justice.
He says “we are deeply aware that compared to the Summer Games, holding the Winter Games will present many challenges such as natural conditions”.
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In Rio, Portugal defeated two-time Olympic champion Argentina 2-0 and Honduras edged Algeria 3-2 in Group D action. Germany and Mexico drew 2-2 in their game.
