Despite the recent doping scandal surrounding Russia’s Olympians, which will keep several of its athletes out of the Summer Games, it was announced Friday that reigning Olympic bronze-medalist Anastasia Baryshnikova and the rest of the Russian taekwondo team have been approved to compete in Rio.
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Australia’s athletes and officials were evacuated from their accommodation at the Olympic Village in Rio on Friday due to a fire. Shubenkov insists he has never taken drugs, though Ukhov infamously was warned by the IAAF after trying to compete while drunk at a 2008 meeting in Lausanne.
“Many details have not been taken into consideration regarding the banning of Russian athletes from the Olympics based on McLaren’s list”.
So far at least 117 individuals from the 387 that the Russian Olympic Committee wanted to enter have been excluded.
Neither swimmer has ever served a ban for a positive test, and both have repeatedly said they are clean athletes.
Saturday’s meeting came less than a week after the International Olympic Committee board decided not to ban Russia’s entire team from the games because of state-sponsored doping.
The International Weightlifting Federation said the “integrity of the weightlifting sport has been seriously damaged on multiple times and levels by the Russians”.
The International Weightlifting Federation has banned the Russian federation and all its weightlifters from the Rio Olympics.
FINA said the swimmers were implicated in the report by World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren that detailed state-sponsored doping in Russian Federation across more than two dozen summer and winter sports, including swimming.
Rio’s preparations, meanwhile, remain clouded on several fronts, including budget cuts, water pollution, slow ticket sales, and concerns over crime and the Zika virus.
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Volunteers pose for a photograph with a set of Olympic Rings inside Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Friday, July 29, 2016. The games come with the suspended president awaiting an impeachment trial and the country gripped by a severe recession. Saturday’s decision marks another step toward potential future inclusion in the Winter Games.
