Rio 2016: Russian weightlifting team banned from Olympics after doping scandal

Instead of an outright ban on Russian participation, as the World Anti-Doping Agency had urged, the IOC will impose a convoluted case-by-case review of Russian athletes, carried out by the 28 global federations that govern each Olympic sport. More than 100, however, have been barred – including the track and field team banned by the IAAF and more than 30 other athletes rejected under new International Olympic Committee eligibility criteria.

The torch is nearing the end of a 300-city relay that will end with the lighting of the Olympic flame in the Maracana stadium at the opening ceremony on August 5.

“None of the wrestlers entered in the Olympic Games – or who qualified a place for their NOC – was included in the McLaren report”.

“The situation went beyond the legal field as well as common sense”, Putin told the audience, which included numerous banned athletes. “Unfortunately, doped athletes will be competing”, said the former Russian anti-doping agency [RUSADA] official, now living in hiding in the United States with his wife.

Eight Russian weightlifters were scheduled to compete in the games.

Time Turieva, the 2013 women’s under 63kg world champion, is also banned.

The US Anti-Doping Agency said yesterday that Olympic medallist Nikita Lobintsev has tested positive for meldonium, the substance banned in the beginning of 2016.

The total number of banned Russian athletes is well over 100, with more fates still to be decided.

That formed the basis for the first independent WADA report last November, which led to the current ban on Russian track and field athletes from competing internationally.

McLaren reported last week that four positive doping tests in Russian fencing and four in triathlon had disappeared in recent years.

About 117 Russian competitors from the 387 initially put forward by the Russian Olympic Committee have now been banned from the Games.

But Russia says most of its Olympic team will take part in Rio, with sports minister Vitaly Mutko telling local media on Friday that 272 of the country’s athletes have received approval from their individual sports federations to compete.

This leaves six more sports still to declare their decisions on Russian eligibility: boxing, golf, handball, table tennis, taekwondo and weightlifting.

“The [Russian Weightlifting] Federation will do everything in its power to rehabilitate us, but it is impossible to do it before the Olympics; there is no time to do anything”, Russian weightlifter Aleksey Lovchev told RT, commenting on the IWF decision.

“I think now the Russian team is the cleanest team in the world”.

“The IWF imposed mandatory provisional suspensions upon the athletes, who remain provisionally suspended in view of potential anti-doping rule violations”, it said.