Vira is among the more than 100 athletes who have been barred from competing in the Rio Olympic Games by global sports federations under sanctions which most Russian athletes consider unfair. And the powerful sports federations themselves are gangrenous with dirty money: The second installment of that same WADA report revealed that the president of the global track federation (the International Association of Athletics Federation, or IAAF) took more than a million Euros in bribes to mask the Russian scam.
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It will make rulings based on independent advice from arbitrators from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Executive Board panel has been selected today to make final decisions on the eligibility of all Russian athletes competing at Rio 2016.
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko on Thursday at a competition held for the athletes who have been banned from the Rio Olympics.
FINA said the swimmers were implicated in the report by World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren that detailed state-sponsored doping in Russian Federation across more than two dozen summer and winter sports, including swimming.
The criteria states that only if they have not previously failed a drugs test and can prove they are clean and not associated with the country’s doping regime are Russian athletes eligible to take part in the Games.
A statement issued by CAS on Saturday said the two swimmers had asked sport’s highest court to declare the International Olympic Committee ruling “invalid and unenforceable”.
Rio’s new metro Line 4, which will be one of the main enduring legacy’s of the Games, links the city’s tourism district with the western Barra da Tijuca neighborhood, where numerous Olympic events are slated to take place.
But the International Olympic Committee refused to effect a blanket ban and instead insisted that the entry of Russian sportspersons will depend on the decision of the individual global federations.
So the opening ceremonies for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro are Friday, and six days out, and still nobody knows how many Russians will be allowed to compete.
President of the Australian Olympic Committee and IOC vice president John Coates has been credited with playing a leading role in the IOC’s decision to ban any Russian athlete who had ever tested positive, regardless of whether they had already served their suspension.
Rio’s preparations, meanwhile, remain clouded on several fronts, including budget cuts, raw sewage that pollutes the sites of rowing, sailing, canoeing, open water swimming and triathlon, slow ticket sales, and concerns over crime and the Zika virus.
Bach gave the organizers a final pep talk ahead of the first games in South America.
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The risk of Zika virus infections at the Olympic Games is both low and manageable, the chief of the World Health Organization said Friday. “He made that very, very clear”. It had received provisional recognition in 2014.
