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Worldwide federations rule – one by one – on Russian Olympic athletes

They asked sports federations, however, to stop Russian athletes from competing in Rio who were implicated in the McLaren report, or had been previously sanctioned.

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But with less than two weeks before the Games start, the IOC has controversially left the decision whether to ban Russian athletes from the other Olympic disciplines down to the individual sports federations.

West Australian rower Alexandra Hagan is on her way to Rio after the Australian women’s rowing eight received a sensational late call-up to the Rio Olympics after the Russian team was ejected.

That in turn led to last week’s McLaren report, which detailed extensive attempts to cover up doping in Russia and implicated the Russian ministry of sport, secret service and anti-doping agency. The five include gold medalist Alexander Dyachenko and 2012 bronze medalist Alexei Korovashkov. They would be withdrawn from the team, he added.

But PSP-Farman is also the name of a Serbian-Russian construction group which still operates and which says on its website it has won contracts from, among other clients, Russia’s central bank, Russian state-owned gas exporter Gazprom, and state broadcaster Russia Today.

A spokesman for the International Fencing Federation said in response to questions from Reuters that a statement was being prepared.

London Olympic canoe slalom silver medallist Jessica Fox, who has been striving for a larger female representation in her sport, said she was delighted.

In a statement, the 30-year-old claimed the International Olympic Committee decision would put off future whistleblowers from coming forward and that it contradicted previous decisions by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“Certainly, we welcome the main decision which allows so-called clean athletes to take part in the Olympic Games, given the permission of global (sports) federations”, Peskov told reporters on a conference call. Despite being given clearance by the International Associations of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to compete as a neutral athlete.

But federations in archery, equestrian, shooting and tennis said they do not expect to take any such action. They were listed as Tuiana Dashidorzhieva, Ksenia Perova and Inna Stepanova.

The McLaren Report, commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), exposed wide-scale state-sponsored doping in Russian Olympic and Paralympic sport. “In outlining its criteria, the International Olympic Committee stressed that in these cases the “‘presumption of innocence’ can not be applied to [Russian athletes]”, so merely the absence of any positive tests will not be sufficient for the IGF to clear Verchenova for competition.

Germany’s Olympic discus champion Robert Harting has launched a stinging attack on International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach, describing him as part of the problem in the fight against doping. In 2013 United World Wrestling overhauled its anti-doping procedures, increased testing and has also developed a more systematic anti-doping education program.

Russian Federation will be able to nominate a replacement for Sozykin’s place in the 470, which is a two-person boat class.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian media that Putin had discussed the doping issue with his national security council.

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It made no mention of the 11 Russian judo athletes entered.

Each Olympic medal won by Team GB at the London 2012 Games cost an average of just over £4.5m.     Anthony Devlin  PA