WADA chief insists anti-doping system ‘not broken’

But the International Olympic Committee has come under fire for not imposing a blanket ban on Russian athletes, despite the report revealing systematic state-backed doping in the country.

Canada’s Richard Pound voted in support of the measure, while World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) President Sir Craig Reedie did not vote because he is an Executive Board member. But peace between the feuding sport governing bodies appeared to be restored by the end of the day’s session. “It is really hard to handle”.

WADA president Craig Reedie, who as an International Olympic Committee vice-president sat close to Bach during his address, chose not to give an immediate response. “It is a natural reaction in this disturbed era that you point fingers”.

As a result, WADA suggested that the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and all international sports federations ban Russian athletes from all international sports competitions, including Rio 2016.

“It is absolutely essential we can not have the biggest country in the world noncompliant on a permanent basis”, he said. “The cynical collateral damage approach is not what the Olympic movement stands for”, said Bach.

Bach blasted an outright ban on Russian Federation as a “nuclear option”, adding: “Let us just for a moment consider the consequences of a “nuclear option”.

The IOC President continued, “The Olympic Movement stands for life and the construction of a better future”.

Reedie s WADA had led calls for Russian Federation to be expelled from Rio, a stance that was backed by several national anti-doping agencies. The IOC also said any athletes specifically named in the McLaren report should be excluded.

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”.

A number of Russian athletes were also banned from swimming, rowing and canoeing, although there was no blanket ban on competitors from the country in these sports.

Russian boxers, tennis players, judokas and shooters were among those given the last-minute approval by an IOC panel set up to review the eligibility of all Russian athletes previously cleared to compete by their global federations.

The federation said Thursday that four women and seven men were tested “many times” before the Olympics and are clean.

Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus will bear the torch of the Rio Olympic Games which is starting in the Brazilian city on August 5.

Bach said the doping system needed completely restructuring.

Pan Zhiwei, director of worldwide relations, says the games will attract 300 million more Chinese to participate in winter sports.

He said they had been forced to make “incredibly hard decisions in an impossible timeframe” and accused them of being “more interested in publicity than doing its job, acting in the interests of clean athletes”.