Russia escapes total ban from Rio Olympics

LAUSANNE — Russia was given a huge reprieve yesterday when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) controversially decided against imposing a blanket ban for the upcoming Rio Games.

Rather than banning the entire Russian team from Rio, the IOC instead decided to hand responsibility back to the international federations that govern each sport, meaning the country’s fate will now be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. However, the IOC has also rejected a bid by Russian whistleblower Yulia Stepanova to compete as a neutral athlete in Rio.

The IOC’s stance is in line with how the Russian track-and-field scandal was handled. It was the International Association of Athletics Federations that decided to ban the 68-strong Russian contingent from the Rio Games, a decision that was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport last week.

However, the IOC’s decision means the various sports’ governing bodies now have less than two weeks to decide whether to follow track and field’s lead in booting Russia out of the Rio Games or allowing them to compete.

In a media statement yesterday, the IOC said that based on the findings of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) report, all Russian athletes seeking entry to the Rio Olympics Games “are considered to be affected by a system subverting and manipulating the anti-doping system”.

As the Wada report has indicated that it has “only skimmed the surface of the extensive data available”, the IOC said “Russian athletes in any of the 28 Olympic summer sports have to assume the consequences of what amounts to a collective responsibility in order to protect the credibility of the Olympic competitions, and the “presumption of innocence” cannot be applied to them”.

However, it noted that, according to the rules of natural justice, individual justice, which everyone is entitled to, has to be applied. “This means that each affected athlete must be given the opportunity to rebut the applicability of collective responsibility in his or her individual case,” said the IOC.

As such, the IOC will not accept any entry of any Russian athlete in the Olympic Games Rio 2016 unless “an athlete is able to provide evidence to the full satisfaction of his or her International Federation (IF).” It added that “the Russian Olympic Committee is not allowed to enter any athlete for the Olympic Games Rio 2016 who has ever been sanctioned for doping, even if he or she has served the sanction.”

Finally, the IOC said the entry of any Russian athlete accepted by the IOC will be subject to a rigorous additional out-of-competition testing programme in coordination with the relevant international federation and Wada. “Any non-availability for this programme will lead to the immediate withdrawal of the accreditation by the IOC.”

Said IOC president Thomas Bach later: “We wanted to balance the collective responsibility as a context and the individual chances to which every human being and every athlete is entitled.”

The IOC’s decision is expected to provoke anger worldwide after more than a dozen anti-doping authorities had called for Russia to be kicked out of the Rio Games in the wake of a damning report released last week detailing a government-led doping programme across all sports between 2011 and 2015.

Gymnastics and equestrian are thought to be two sports that are amenable to having Russians compete in Rio. This is because neither sport was named among those implicated in 577 failed tests, 312 of which were covered up by Russian officialdom, in the Wada-commissioned report. However, other sports — such as weightlifting, wrestling and canoeing — were revealed to have large numbers of Russian athletes with positive doping tests covered up. As such, their world governing bodies are likely to take a stronger view.

The major doubt now is whether IFs have enough time to make a considered — and legally sound — decision with less than a fortnight until the start of the Rio Games.

The IOC’s decision came after it confirmed that it was “exploring legal options” over whether to ban the entire Russian team, pending the result of an appeal by 68 of the country’s track and field athletes to overturn their separate ban from international competition that has been in place since November.

That appeal was upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday, but IOC has nonetheless decided against following the lead of athletics’ governing body.

Despite the IOC’s decision, Russia remains on the verge of an all-out ban from the Rio Paralympics after the International Paralympic Committee announced it had “opened suspension proceedings” against the country and will kick out all of their athletes on August 1 unless Russia successfully argues otherwise. AGENCIES