Meanwhile in Moscow, Russia’s sports minister said on Saturday that the national team to compete in the Rio Olympics starting next week so far has 266 competitors, although decisions were still pending on several athletes.
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Pressure for the full sanction followed a World Anti-Doping Agency report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren that accused Russia’s sports ministry of overseeing a vast doping conspiracy involving the country’s summer and winter sports athletes.
Among those who denied an entry to the Russians was world athletics body IAAF, that also rejected the individual applications of 68 athletes.
Per Kevin Farley of Team USA’s official website, the federation released a statement on Friday: “The integrity of the weightlifting sport has been seriously damaged on multiple times and levels by the Russians”.
Australian athletes have had a scare in Rio de Janeiro after their building in the Olympic Games Village was evacuated due to a fire.
“As of today there are seven confirmed AAFs (adverse analytical findings) for Russian weightlifters from the combined reanalysis process of London and Beijing, while the second wave of Beijing reanalysis is not yet in a stage when the names and countries involved can be publicly disclosed”.
The International Weightlifting Federation has banned the Russian federation and all its weightlifters from 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.
“I call for a push to match efforts to win medals on the playing fields with work to silence guns on the battlefields”, he added. The final number expelled will be determined by independent arbiters appointed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
“I can see that every morning doping agents come and take their samples”, Kazikov said.
The fire will once again draw attention to Rio’s spotty preparations, which have been marred by the Zika virus, severe water pollution, crime, and slow ticket sales.
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Terekhov says he received a letter from the WTF and that “we were told that all three of our athletes have officially been admitted to compete in the Olympic Games”.
