Russian weightlifters banned from Rio Olympics for doping

These banned athletes include any competitors with previous doping suspensions.

Morozov and Lobintsev also demand that the IOC “validates the entries submitted by the Russian Olympic Committee for them to compete in the Olympic Games in Rio”. The Athletes Village opened Sunday and the games begin on August 5th.

The accusations of creating “a state-supported doping system” have been rejected by Russian authorities, who say that Russian athletes are being denied the opportunity to represent their country in Rio.

Bach said he hopes the public will “realize we did our best to address the situation in a way which allows us to protect clean athletes all over the world”.

Two of the eight-strong weightlifting team – Tatiana Kashirina and Anastasia Romanova – had already been banned for doping violations and another four team members were named in the McLaren Report, sponsored by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which exposed state sponsored cheating.

All of Russia’s weightlifters were banned from the Rio Olympics late on Friday for doping for what the worldwide federation called “extremely shocking” results that brought the sport into “disrepute”.

International Olympic Committee director of communications Mark Adams said the executive board would rule on each case.

McLaren said his mandate has been extended to finish the investigation and “identify any further athletes that might have benefited from such manipulation to hide positive doping tests”.

The governing body for each sport is to check athletes, who can also appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS).

“Under these exceptional circumstances, Russian athletes in any of the 28 Olympic summer sports have to assume the consequences of what amounts to a collective responsibility in order to protect the credibility of the Olympic competitions, and the “presumption of innocence” can not be applied to them”, added the IWF.

The Canadian lawyer who accused Russian Federation of operating a state-run doping program is facing “a deluge of requests” for information on individual athletes implicated in his investigation.

Russian doping whistleblower Vitaly Stepanov told a Brazilian newspaper that the Rio Olympics “will not be clean” and blasted the International Olympic Committee for not banning Russia.

“That’s treachery and cynicism of the highest grade and I think it highlights the crisis in world sports and the worldwide Olympic movement”, Yeryomin said.

With the shadow of impeachment hanging over the Games, both Ms Rousseff’s supporters and critics are likely to try to seize upon the Olympics as an opportunity to score political points.