Russian weightlifting team banned from Rio

PARIS: Russia’s eight-strong Olympic Games weightlifting team was banned from the Rio Games on Friday in the latest doping-related blow to the sporting powerhouse.

“The integrity of the weightlifting sport has been seriously damaged on multiple times and levels by the Russians, therefore an appropriate sanction was applied in order to pre- serve the status of the sport,” said a statement by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).

There are now 117 Russian competitors banned from the Games — includ- ing 67 track and field athletes — from the 387 initially nominated by the Russian Olympic Committee.

The eight weightlifters originally selected were Oleg Chen, Adam Maligov, Ruslan Albegov, David Bedzhanyan and Artem Okulov in the men’s competition and Tatiana Kashirina, Tima Turieva and Anastasia Romanova in the women’s.

Okulov is a world champion while at the London Games in 2012, Albegov claimed a bronze medal and Kashirina took home a silver.

Kashirina and Romanova both had their nominations withdrawn by the Russian Olympic Committee due to prior anti-doping rule violations, added the IWF statement.

Four others were listed in the bombshell McLaren report, which exposed widespread state-sponsored doping in Russia.

In the aftermath of that report, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) resisted huge pressure to impose a blanket ban on Russia from the Olympics which get underway on August 5.

Instead, they asked individual federations to make the call on who should be cleared for the Games.