A three-person International Olympic Committee panel had assessed which athletes from Russian Federation can take part after the World Anti-Doping Agency report last month. The IOC took a soft line and on Sunday ordered individual sports federations to decide whether Russian competitors could take part in the games. This leaves me wondering just what song or anthem would be played should she win a gold medal.
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“I believed the IOC was going to say, “We don’t want this in our organization and we have to make a stand, ‘” said USA race walker John Nunn, who also serves on the USA track team’s athletes” advisory committee.
And he said that the broader anti-doping drive had become “political and hysterical”.
“Yes, sure”, Zamolodchikova told AFP at the Russia House team base at Rio’s Copacabana, when asked if they would stay in the top 10.
But they continue to publicly deny the conclusions of WADA’s independent investigator, Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, that doping fraud at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics was organised by the sports ministry and the Russian secret service. “I think this is absolutely unfair”. “Now all athletes are much stronger”.
According to a recently released report from the World Anti-Doping Agency, Russia’s government ran a “systematic scheme” to infuse the Russian team with performance-enhancing drugs and to cover up that cheating, before, during and after the 2014 Winter Olympics, which Russia hosted.
Olympic officials announced Thursday night that 271 Russian athletes would be allowed to compete in the Rio Games, 118 fewer than the country hoped to enter.
Although the Russian Weightlifting Federation appealed that decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), its petition was rejected Wednesday.
Other sports federations, however, such as boxing, had greenlighted full rosters of Russian athletes, leaving no need for legal appeals.
It failed to effect a total ban on Russian competitors.
But Ukrainian Sport Minister Igor Zhdanov said he was unhappy to see some Kiev athletes criticise the International Olympic Committee for banning some Russians from Rio at all.
Among 31 swimmers accepted are Vladimir Morozov and Nikita Lobintsev, who were initially banned.
“That process is now complete and confirmation has been received from the IOC (International Olympic Committee) Review Panel that the following 11 Russian boxers are eligible to compete at Rio 2016”.
“The Russian team may have experienced the toughest checks of the Olympics, because they had to go through multiple tests and checked”, said Zhukov.
The opening ceremony of the games will take place today.
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The New York Times reported, “In a dark-of-night operation, Russian antidoping experts and members of the intelligence service surreptitiously replaced urine samples tainted by performance-enhancing drugs with clean urine collected months earlier, somehow breaking into the supposedly tamper-proof bottles that are the standard at worldwide competitions, Dr. Rodchenkov said”.
