At a USOC news conference Friday, Probst echoed Bach in saying the decision had wide support among athletes, including all eight athlete representatives on the IOC.
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The Independent Commission of WADA, chaired by Canadian law professor, Richard McLaren, released the now-infamous July 18 report on the results of a probe into the accusations of doping and manipulation of tests by Russian athletes and officials at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games.
Russian breaststroker Yulia Efimova said yesterday she would take part in the Rio Olympics, a day after winning an appeal against a doping ban, but there was no immediate confirmation from swimming’s governing body FINA.
Bach meanwhile said the first Olympic Games staged in South America had helped transform Rio de Janeiro, despite the failure to deliver certain infrastructure promises and a pledge to clean up the city’s heavily polluted Guanabara Bay.
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach has criticised WADA’s handling of the crisis and said the anti-doping system needs a total overhaul.
“I, for one, am hugely disappointed by the IOC’s lack of resolve in dealing with proven Government-sponsored cheating”. We want as many NOCs as possible to be represented at every Olympic Games and we are delighted that here in Rio de Janeiro more countries than ever before will come together in the pursuit of their Olympic dreams.
The Guardian quoted Professor Richard McLaren, whose explosive report blew the Russian doping programme wide open last month, as accusing the International Olympic Committee and Bach of badly misrepresenting his findings.
Alexander Zhukov said it was unfair Russian sports stars such as double Olympic champion pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva would now watch the Games from home while past doping offenders, including top USA runner Justin Gatlin, took to the field.
Pound is now urging greater funding for WADA as well as the power to “conduct investigations, to call on public authorities to provide timely and effective assistance and to require the target of any investigation to contribute to the costs of the investigation, failing any of which, the target may be provisionally sanctioned”.
Bach said the presence of the IOC’s Olympic refugee team – comprising 10 athletes who have fled war or poverty to compete in Rio – was a riposte to a world “where selfishness is gaining ground, where certain people claim to be superior to others”.
It failed to effect a total ban on Russian competitors.
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The ball is now in the IOC’s court, at the place of the fumble.
