Russian Federation will not have any weightlifters at Rio 2016 after the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected their appeal.
Advertisement
Weightlifting powerhouse China looks set to extend its dominance in the sport when the Rio de Janeiro Games begin on Saturday after topping the medal table at every Olympics since 2000 in Sydney.
A CAS statement said its arbitrators ruled Wednesday that the ban on Russia’s team imposed by the International Weightlifting Federation “was valid and was properly applied in the circumstances”.
“It’s true that many people say that weightlifting is doping, but I hope this perception will change sooner rather than later”, IWF director general Attila Adamfi said on Thursday.
The rowers, along with several other Russian athletes from other sports, had their appeals heard by CAS on Tuesday and Inside the Games reported that the Court upheld the principle of athletes being ruled ineligible if they can not effectively “prove they are clean”.
Last month, the IWF said its Executive Board had chose to suspend for a year national federations that produced three or more doping violations in re-tests from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games.
They had already previously banned three rowers who had served doping bans or who had been named in the McLaren report for WADA that exposed Russia’s “disappearing positives” regime.
After all individual sports federations were told by the International Olympic Committee to make a decision on whether to include Russian competitors in the Games, only the IWF and athletic s’ governing body, the IAAF, have issued blanket bans.
Kashirina and Romanova had their entries withdrawn by the Russian Olympic Committee over existing anti-doping rule violations, the IWF said.
Advertisement
Reeb dismissed any criticism about the role of CAS in ruling on athletes’ involvement in the Games.
