IOC offers full support for IAAF decision to ban Russians

The governing body’s 27-strong council unanimously decided at a meeting in Vienna on Friday to extend Russia’s suspension from global competition for doping offences, ruling that the criteria for reinstatement had not been met. Athletes who have never tested positive could also appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, an worldwide fixture aimed at making decisions on such issues.

“Given the International Olympic Committee’s statements, our sports people have no chance” of going to the Games, Mutko told R-Sport agency, before insisting he would fight on for Russia’s athletes.

Russian investigators said Saturday they had launched a criminal case against the former head of the country’s anti-doping laboratory who alleged the government and security service were involved in cover-ups.

“It’s a great step not to have Russia there because if you think back to the Olympics I’ve been to, all Russian medallists in the event have later been banned for doping and now that won’t happen in Rio”.

“A lot of credibility is at stake for the Russians, the IAAF and the IOC”.

“We firmly believe that clean athletes should not be punished for the actions of others”, he said in an open letter to Coe.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the decision unfair.

In the run-up to the IAAF meeting on June 17, Russian Federation had embarked on an all-out push to ensure its athletes could compete in Rio de Janeiro.

“My gut feeling is that some of the folks in the International Olympic Committee bubble have no sense of the collective outrage if it makes the wrong decision”, Dick Pound, a long-standing International Olympic Committee member and co-author of the report that led to Russia’s ban, told Reuters. A Russian ministry later said it was “extremely disappointed” by the decision to ban the entire team from the Rio Games.

The Independent Chair of the IAAF inspection team, Rune Andersen, said that confidence in Russian athletes to be drug-free had eroded.

Coe denied that caveat – which will also apply to Yuliya Stepanova, the 800 metres runner who became a whistleblower on the state of the Russian anti-doping system – was politically or geographically motivated.

“We would only welcome athletes to compete neutrally if they can prove a history of WADA (World Anti-Doping Authority) code compliance under the strictest of conditions”, he said in an AA statement.

“By shifting all blame on the Russian Athletic Federation, they relieved the International Association of its responsibility”.

The commission accused certain athletes and sports officials of doping abuse and involvement in other activities related to violations of worldwide regulations on performance enhancing substances.

“There might be clean athletes in Russian Federation, but they’ve been under a system which is not clean and which we can’t be sure it hasn’t undertaken sufficient anti-doping work so that they sufficiently can be said to be clean”.