“The IAAF President, Sebastian Coe, has issued a statement that says this outcome is not one of triumph and we echo this sentiment”. “It is our federation’s instinctive desire to include, not exclude”.
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The global rowing federation said Wednesday it was investigating whether Russian rowers’ places at the Rio Olympics could be reallocated to athletes from other countries “if there would be a blanket ban on the Russian team or any other ban”.
The Russian Olympic Committee said it would fight until the end for the rights of all “clean” Russian sports people.
This was because of a report by the World Anti-Doping Agency – an independent group of scientists who are in charge of testing athletes for drugs to make sure they aren’t cheating.
“It was a government-instituted program and every doping test was scanned to make sure there wasn’t a positive – and if it happened to be a Russian athlete who had a positive test, it disappeared and it was replaced by a negative test”.
“The Cas panel confirmed that the ROC is not entitled to nominate Russian track and field athletes to compete at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games considering that they are not eligible to participate under the IAAF competition rules”, a spokesman said.
In its ruling, the highest court in sports found that the IAAF had properly applied its own rules in keeping the Russians out of the Games.
At least two – 800m runner and doping whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova and US-based long jumper Darya Klishina – have gone down that path.
On June 17, the IAAF Council ruled it was still early to restore the membership of the All-Russia Athletics Federation (ARAF) in the worldwide organization and suspended Russian athletes from all global tournaments, including the 2016 Olympic Games. But if the International Olympic Committee was hoping for cover for its argument about the rights of individual clean athletes outweighing the need for collective responsibility, it didn’t get it here.
The executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will now take a final decision on the issue of the Russian athletes’ participation in the Rio Olympics on July 24.
The IOC says incidents will be handled by “a confidential procedure linked to local law enforcement agencies and relevant disciplinary channels”.
Still to be resolved is under which flag any Russians would compete under.
Tatyana Beloborodova, who won 2012 Olympic hammer gold as Tatyana Lysenko, is another predicted medalist who will be ruled out. “Not just ours, but all of them”, Litvinov said.
However, the CAS stated that they have no jurisdiction over whether or not the International Olympic Committee can accept or refuse Russian track and field athletes-whether representing their country or as “neutral athletes”. The IOC has said it will study the CAS decision and other legal implications before making a decision next week.
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The fate of Russia’s athletes for this summer’s Olympics is cast further into doubt by a new setback. Yelena Isinbayeva is one of the Russian stars who could miss the Rio Olympics.
