Stepanova, who had also given chapter and verse about Russian doping to the World Anti-Doping Agency and IAAF, was invited by the IAAF to compete under a neutral flag in Rio but the International Olympic Committee announced on Sunday no Russians who had served a ban for doping could take part.
Advertisement
In a statement, FINA also said they would retest samples of Russian athletes who participated at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan, one of the events mentioned in McLaren’s report.
The scandal, which centres on allegations that the Russian government and FSB security service have systematically covered up doping in sport, has hurt Putin’s attempts to tie Russia’s sporting prowess to what he says is his country’s resurgence on the world stage, but his own ratings look safe.
“The ICF will continue its strong zero-tolerance stance and remove all athletes that contravene its rules in anyway”, said Simon Toulson, the International Canoe Federation’s general secretary.
The ICF ruled five sprint canoeists – Elena Aniushina, Natalia Podolskaia, Alexander Dyachenko, Andrey Kraitor and Alexey Korovashkov – ineligible to compete at the Games, but stopped short of issuing a federation-wide ban.
Also, Russia also looks set to field a full team of four players in Olympic badminton, the Russian Badminton Federation said Tuesday, citing assurances from the Badminton World Federation.
The ICF also said that Russian Federation would not be allowed to enter boats in four events in which the excluded athletes would have raced.
The IOC decided on Sunday not to impose a blanket ban on Russian athletes due to the country’s doping history, allowing sports federations to decide on individual cases. Anyone who is implicated will not be allowed to compete in Rio. “If you step out of line, you won’t make the start line”.
The IOC announced on Monday that it would not apply blanket bans to all Russian athletes for August’s Rio Olympics over widespread state-sanctioned doping, instead leaving the decision with each sport’s governing body.
Anastasia Krapivina, who was slated to compete in the 10k open water race in Rio tested positive for a banned substance in 2013, thus disallowing the ROC to enter her for the games.
Russian track and field and canoeing teams have so far been banned. “This didn’t happen. While I agree we must protect individual clean athletes of Russia and the world, I can not see how passing the responsibility to (International Federations) makes this any easier, especially with the Games 12 days away”.
And even better news for Russia’s beleaguered sports chiefs came when the International Shooting Sport Federation approved all 18 of Russia’s squad. The IOC said it had partly based its decision on the fact that she had declined to compete for Russian Federation.
“If you are doping in a system that is similar to Russian Federation, continue doing so because there is no reason to fight it because in the end the International Olympic Committee will say they will not punish the system, but we will punish the whistleblower”, he said.
Bach, an Olympic fencing champion in 1976, defended the IOC decision, saying it “respects the right of every clean athlete around the world”.
Dmitry Svishchev, who heads the lower house of Russian parliament’s sports and physical culture committee, told AFP the IOC decision was “not bad”.
Advertisement
Karolyi praised Douglas for her steady improvement during a recently completed national training camp, and said Douglas will likely be given an opportunity to defend the gold medal she won in London four years ago.
