The 150 competitors included numerous 67 Russian athletes banned from competing at the Games after findings of state-sponsored doping, including the hurdler Sergei Shubenkov and high jumpers Ivan Ukhov and Maria Kuchina.
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Alexander Dyachenko, an Olympic champion in 2012, was among five canoeists ruled out after being named in a recent report by World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren alleging a state-sponsored doping cover-up.
“We would like to get concrete requirements [from athletics’ governing body] to restore Russia’s membership, so that no one can hit reverse later and say we didn’t fulfill the requirements”, he said. “We have zero tolerance for doping”.
Russian Federation says its taekwondo team has been approved to compete at the Rio Olympics against the backdrop of the country’s doping scandal.
There was better news for Rio organisers in the arrival overnight of Jamaica’s Olympic sprint superstar Usain Bolt, who hopes to defend his multiple gold medals.
Viktor Lebedev was the lone wrestler not to be cleared due to a positive doping test in the 2006 junior world championships. “But nevertheless our team is strong. They’re not letting [our athletes] compete for political reasons”.
John Coates, the head of Cas as well as an International Olympic Committee vice-president, has confirmed he spent three days on the legal aspects of the IOC’s decision with a chair of the International Olympic Committee legal affairs commission.
Russia’s largest losses are in track and field, with 67 of 68 athletes barred, while the situation remains unclear in some sports, notably weightlifting and boxing.
“All the athletes who will go to Rio or are already there won’t be broken”, she said, adding that Russians would compete in Rio “to spite everyone” and “rattle the world” with their performances. The names of the other banned lifters were not announced.
TABLE TENNIS – Three Russians await a decision from the International Table Tennis Federation.
Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko on July 29 said that 272 of the country’s 387 Olympic athletes had been cleared to go by global federations that govern individual sports, and the number could rise.
Australian Olympic team members have returned to their building at the Rio Olympic Athletes Village after smoke from a small fire in the basement prompted an evacuation. McLaren’s report was sent to IC, they are scrutinising it. “We have set up a special anti-doping commission”, he said.
Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said that 272 Russian athletes have been approved by the sports federations for the Olympics, which begin August 5. What, for for setting a world record and for being clean from doping? “In Russia there is not, and never has been, any state support for doping”.
Isinbayeva has become a de facto spokeswoman for Russian athletes excluded from the Olympics and gave a tearful address to the team in the Kremlin on Wednesday.
“We needed to make a statement”, discus thrower Yekaterina Strokova told reporters of the consolation meet, which garnered an audience of some 150 people, mostly athletes’ friends and relatives.
Two-time Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva did not compete, explaining that her legal battle against athletics authorities over the ban had not allowed her to adequately prepare.
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The advert told participants to come in Russian team kit, “wave flags and smile”.
