105 Russians missing out
At least 105 athletes from the 387-strong Russian Olympic team announced last week have been barred from the Rio Games in connection with the country’s doping scandal.
International federations in canoeing, sailing and modern pentathlon ruled out eight yesterday, including an Olympic gold medallist.
Rowing added 19 more athletes to three that had previously been announced. Swimming has also barred some athletes. Some appeals are likely.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian media that Putin had discussed the doping issue with his national security council.
The vast majority of the Russian athletes who miss out are in track enter a boat.
Of the six Russian men’s rowers allowed to compete in Rio, one - Aleksandr Chaukin - is a lightweight and hence highly unlikely to be considered for a heavyweight four. Vladislav Ryabcev has competed exclusively in recent years as a sculler, leaving four realistic options - Georgy Efremenko, Artem Kosov, Nikita Morgachev and Anton Zarutskiy - to form a four.
Fisa was given the power to decide which Russian athletes could compete, following the International Olympic Committee’s and field, where 67 athletes were ruled out when a ban on the Russian team was upheld at the Court of Arbitration for Sport last week. More are falling foul of new rules imposed in the wake of the country’s doping scandal. decision to leave the issue of Russian participation up to individual sporting federations, in the wake of the country’s recent doping scandal. Three Russian rowers had been excluded earlier in the week, two for having previous doping sanctions, and one for having been implicated in doping by the McLaren report. None of the 28 rowers entered by Russia had been found to have tested positive in the past five years, but doubts over the reliability of Wada’s Moscow laboratory raised by the McLaren report led Fisa to exclude the majority of the original team.