Russian Federation will immediately appeal the decision to ban all eight of its weightlifters from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics for doping.
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The Court of Arbitration for Sport said it received appeals from Vladimir Morozov and Nikita Lobintsev, both seeking to overturn their bans over state-sponsored doping allegations.
The IWF cull last night took the number of Russians expelled from the Games to at least 123, with athletics, rowing, swimming, cycling canoeing, sailing, wrestling and modern pentathlon the other events in which bans have been imposed. “I think the general feeling is that it is appreciated that, on the one hand, we are sanctioning a (doping) system, but on the other hand we have given athletes who were not part of the system the opportunity to demonstrate this and then to be allowed to take part in the Olympic Games”.
Mutko said: “CAS now works 24 hours a day, so today or tomorrow we will support our athletes and try to get them restored to the team”.
The IOC says the integrity unit will be responsible for “the prevention, monitoring and assessment of any unethical activity” related to the games.
Australian team spokesman Mike Tancred said about 100 athletes and officials were evacuated from their building in the sprawling athletes’ village.
Members of the Australian hockey team walk at the Olympic Village before the fire.
Richard McLaren, who was commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, issued a report that accused Russia’s sports ministry of overseeing doping among Olympic athletes in more than two dozen summer and winter sports.
“The [Russian Weightlifting] Federation will do everything in its power to rehabilitate us, but it is impossible to do it before the Olympics; there is no time to do anything”, Russian weightlifter Aleksey Lovchev told RT, commenting on the IWF decision. She also was suspended for doping from 2008 to 2010.
It named Russian Federation, along with Kazakhstan and Belarus, but said it would await confirmation of the positive tests from the International Olympic Committee before implementing the suspension.
Russia’s best-known track and field athlete, Yelena Isinbayeva, has failed in a last-ditch attempt to compete at the Rio Olympics.
While his information can help global federations, McLaren said that was as much as he could do at this point in time.
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“May the serenity brought by the Olympic flame stop the disputes”, he said.
