Rio Olympics 2016 plunged into chaos as IOC ruling on Russia ban delayed!
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (PNN) - July 31, 2016 - The start of the Olympics was in danger of being plunged into chaos by the Russian doping crisis on Sunday night after the International Olympic Committee admitted a final ruling on the expulsion of the country’s athletes may not be made until hours before Friday’s opening ceremony.
An outbreak of appeals against bans already imposed on competitors from Russia also threatened to derail the kick-off of Rio 2016, the build-up to which has been marred by the fallout from arguably the worst drugs scandal in history.
The IOC’s president insisted on Sunday it was not to blame for the unprecedented shambles, declaring it the fault of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
IOC President Thomas Bach snapped at suggestions the IOC’s response to the crisis had been a huge failure, claiming it was “very obvious” where responsibility lay as a result of the “timing” of the Wada-commissioned report, which found Russia guilty of state-sponsored doping and a corresponding cover-up on a staggering scale.
The shockwaves from that report continued to reverberate over the weekend when the IOC announced a three-strong panel of executive board members would have the final say on the participation of individual athletes and would make a decision by Friday at the latest.
With competition starting in earnest on Saturday, that may not leave enough time for replacements from other nations - and potentially whole teams in certain sports - to be drafted.
The news emerged six days after the IOC refused to throw Russia’s entire Olympic team out of Rio 2016, instead ordering international federations to select which of the country’s competitors fulfilled strict criteria laid down by the executive board.
The past week has seen a wave of expulsions of either former drug cheats or athletes named in the Wada report but, as it stands, close to three-quarters of Russia’s original near-400 delegation are still going to the Games.
Bach said, “The IOC cannot be made responsible either for the timing or for the reasons of these incidents we have to face now and which we are addressing and have to address just a couple of days before the Olympic Games.”
The IOC president was accused of being too close to Russian President Vladimir Putin upon ruling out a blanket ban, with one newspaper in his native Germany even branding him “Putin’s Poodle”.
Bach denied having spoken to any Russian government officials since the publication of the doping report by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren.
Also threatening to undermine the IOC’s grand plan is a succession of appeals against bans already imposed.
Yulia Efimova yesterday became the third Russian swimmer to challenge her expulsion, the London 2012 200 meters breaststroke bronze medalist following Vladimir Morozov and Nikita Lobintsev in taking her case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Russia’s disgraced sports minister, Vitaly Mutko - implicated in the McLaren report - has also indicated the country’s weightlifting federation would appeal its entire team being thrown out of the Olympics by the sport’s governing body.
