Despite calls for a blanket ban from the Rio Games as punishment for their state-sponsored doping programme, 272 of Russia’s original team of 387 are in line to compete, according to their sports minister Vitaly Mutko.
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Russian “sports fans” were paid to cheer Russia’s Olympic team at a Moscow airport as they departed for Rio, the Gazeta.ru news website reported Friday.
It said the punishment was an “appropriate sanction” to “preserve the status of the sport”.
Also banned from the games are seven Russian swimmers, five canoeists, and two athletes who compete in pentathalons.
To date, responses from other sports’ individual federations to the International Olympic Committee ruling has been mixed, with several Russian swimmers, canoeists and rowers subject to bans.
The three riders withdrawn are believed to be Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha), who won a stage of the 2016 Tour de France, 2012 Olympic time trial and road race bronze medallist Olga Zabelinskaya and Sergei Shilov who rides at Continental level.
“We need to accept that pro-cess, it was a strict, it was a fair process, and get on with it. Focus on our own lane, on our performance and focus on our own best result that we can possibly do”.
The International Olympic Committee’s new television channel will launch officially August 21, the last day of this year’s Rio de Janeiro Games, as the organization looks to attract a new generation of fans.
United World Wrestling, the governing body, defended their decision, saying more than half of those tests had been properly processed by the Moscow anti-doping laboratory.
CHINESE Olympic-goers have been victims of “frequent” theft in Brazil, China’s foreign ministry said yesterday in a warning to its citizens overseas to take greater safety precautions ahead of the Rio Games. But the test isn’t ready yet, Budgett said late on Thursday (Friday NZ Time) from Rio.
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Speaking just hours before the IWF’s decision was announced, he told Press Association Sport: “My personal opinion is if anyone has served a drug ban in any sport, they shouldn’t have the right to be able to compete in the greatest show on earth”. ‘The miracle didn’t happen’.
