As it stands, the IAAF has approved just two Russians to compete, as “neutral athletes”, after they showed they had been training and living overseas under a robust drug testing regime. The IOC will take that ruling into account before making its own decision.
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By DENNIS PASSA AP Sports Writer Former World Anti-Doping Agency president John Fahey says it should be a “clear-cut” decision: Russian Federation should not be allowed to compete at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Russian athletes are waiting nervously for news of whether their country’s track and field team will be allowed to compete at next month’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. It also has said that it will seek guidance from the highly anticipated ruling of the Court of Arbitration for Sport on the status of 68 Russian track and field athletes who are appealing their Rio banishment from the global track and field federation due to the Russian federation’s massive doping violations.
“The McLaren report makes it abundantly clear that if they want to safeguard the integrity of the Olympic Games, they need to ban Russia”, Fahey said.
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”.
International Olympic Committee backs Russia’s Rio Olympics athletics ban as Wada turns attention to Russian doping in other sports.
” Several national Olympic committees have also voiced support for Russia’s case that it would be wrong to exclude Russian athletes who have not failed drug tests”. Should the International Olympic Committee then impose a total ban across all sports, Russian athletes – though probably not the track and field team – could conceivably appeal again to CAS.
The case dates to November, when the IAAF suspended Russia’s track and field federation following a World Anti-Doping Agency commission report that alleged systematic and state-backed doping in the country.
Dick Pound, the former WADA president who authored the earlier report on doping in Russian track and field, said Federation Internationale de Football Association now has another “credibility issue” to confront following McLaren’s findings.
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While praising the International Olympic Committee executive board’s strong statement to “take the toughest sanctions available” in response to the independent World Anti-Doping Agency report issued by Canadian attorney Richard McLaren on Monday, the letter notes that the International Olympic Committee has in fact done nothing of the sort since.
