Doping has swung into focus ahead of the Rio Olympics after an independent report detailed systematic, state-run doping program in Russian Federation, leading the International Olympic Committee to consider banning the country entirely from the Games.
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It refused to lift the suspension last month, meaning no Russian athletes could take part in Rio.
An independent report claims there was state-sanctioned doping by Russian athletes at the 2014 Sochi Games.
Russian Federation plans to send a total of 387 athletes, including 68 in track and field, he said.
Under Thursday’s ruling in Lausanne, 68 Russian track and field athletes who were applying to compete in Rio will not be going to the Olympics. The CAS award upholds the rights of the IAAF to use its rules for the protection of the sport, to protect clean athletes and support the credibility and integrity of competition.
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”.
Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, who was commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, issued a report Monday that accused Russia’s sports ministry of orchestrating a vast doping system that affected 28 summer and winter Olympic sports.
The three-person panel ruled that the Russian Olympic Committee “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”.
“While we are thankful that our rules and our power to uphold our rules and the anti-doping code have been supported, this is not a day for triumphant statements”.
That sanction was imposed in November after an earlier WADA-funded investigation and upheld last month, following a unanimous vote by the IAAF’s council that Russian Federation had not done enough to earn reinstatement.
Pressure intensified Wednesday on the International Olympic Committee in the midst of one of the largest sports doping scandals ever when anti-doping leaders from 14 nations called upon IOC President Thomas Bach to deny Russia’s Olympic Committee and its athletes from competing in the upcoming Rio Olympic Games.
The IOC has scheduled another executive board meeting on Sunday to consider the issue.
And with Russian Federation desperately trying to turn the debate away from collective punishment towards individual bans, Zhukov is still hoping to watch the 387 athletes selected for the Olympics march into Rio’s opening ceremony on August 5.
The ruling could influence whether the entire Russian Olympic team is banned from the games.
Sixty-eight Russian athletes and the Russian Olympic Committee had sought to overturn the ban imposed by the IAAF, world athletics’ governing body.
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If the IAAF ban is thrown out and the Russian track athletes are let back in, that would seemingly rule out the International Olympic Committee imposing a blanket ban.
