International Olympic Committee decides not to blanket ban Russian Federation from Rio Olympics

The International Olympic Committee decided Sunday that international federations must decide on their own whether or not to ban Russian competitors from the Rio Games.

“This is about doing justice to clean athletes all over the world”, IOC President Thomas Bach said.

Russian Federation has admitted some doping violations by its athletes and coaches, but denies the government was involved.

The nation is ready to change its doping system jointly with WADA, he said.

Wada had urged the IOC to ban all athletes submitted by the Russian Olympic Committee for both the Rio Games and the Paralympics, with individual exceptions to be considered by the IOC for participation under a neutral flag.

“In a nutshell, the presumption of innocence can not be applied to them – there is insufficient time for hearings with the Games so close”.

Individual sports’ governing bodies will have to decide if Russian competitors are clean and able to take part.

“The ITF welcomes the decision of the IOC to permit clean athletes to compete in Rio 2016 and to let each International Federation determine the eligibility of its respective Russian athletes”. About 20 different summer Olympic sports were accused in the report.

The IOC’s announcement follows the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) call for a Rio ban in response to the independent McLaren report that found evidence of widespread state-sponsored doping by Russian athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Coates spent three days advising the IOC on the legal aspects of any decision relating to Russian sanctions for the Games in Rio de Janeiro and explained the rationale in a statement released by the Australian Olympic Committee.

Welshman Davies, Olympic long jump champion at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics supported the IAAF’s decision to ban Russia’s athletics team.

That decision was upheld by the court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday.

Russian Federation had strongly denied any state role and railed against numerous conditions imposed by the International Olympic Committee on Sunday.

The IOC also delivered a crushing blow to Stepanova’s hopes of competing in Rio.

Any athlete or official implicated in the McLaren report should be excluded and the global federations will also have to apply their own rules in relation to collective sanctions against the Russian national federation in their respective sport.