Russia’s depleted Olympic team heads for Rio

Global sports federations must now remove any athlete previously banned for doping or who was implicated in a report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency that accused Russia of a mass cover-up of failed drug tests.

An investigation launched by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in May resulted in the publication of a report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren on July 18. (Warning: Mild Explicit Content) Kalmoe is a member of the U.S. Rowing team and is exhausted of hearing about the quality of Rio’s waters.

Officials gave little detail about the arrest, which comes a week after 12 men were arrested on accusations of forming a cell to discuss potential attacks at the time of the Rio Olympics and swearing loyalty to ISIS.

Other federations are still to announce their decision, although the International Volleyball Federation said it had submitted a list of Russian volleyball and beach volleyball participants to the IOC and Cas for approval.

The latest concern was a threat by metro employees to strike from August 4, the eve of the Olympics, if they don’t get a 9.83 per cent salary raise.

“We are considering isolated cases, but we haven’t seen enough to say it was an organized sabotage thing”, Rio spokesman Mario Andrada said. However, it laid out extremely harsh criteria for the Russians to participate, making it impossible for athletes with doping history to qualify for the games.

“We anxiously waited for this day, we anxious. You know yourselves what the situation is”, Alexander Zhukov, the head of Russia’s Olympic Committee was quoted as saying.

While the ceremony is a tradition, this year it was marked by especially fervent calls to defend the country’s honour, given that more than 100 Russian athletes from various sports have been banned because of state-sponsored doping.

Olympic champion pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva and world champion hurdler Sergey Shubenkov are among 67 of the 68-strong athletics team to have been banned by the International Athletics Federation (IAAF).

Vitaly Mutko tells Russian media that “as of today, 272 athletes have definitely been admitted to the Olympics”, adding that a final figure would be available Saturday.

Some Russian competitors are already in Brazil acclimatising to the conditions but despite yesterday’s triumphal farewell it remains unclear how numerous 387-strong squad Moscow named last week will eventually compete.

Isinbayeva has become a de facto spokeswoman for Russian athletes excluded from the Olympics and gave a tearful address to the team in the Kremlin on Wednesday. Isinbaeva wrote on her page in Instagram. The 40-year-old Tetyukhin won four Olympic medals, including gold at London 2012.

A riot during the Olympic torch relay cast a shadow over the Rio Games starting in just over a week Thursday, marking a new low in a ritual that had been meant to unite Brazil.