Now Russian weightlifters are banned MARTHA KELNER

RUSSIA’S fight to reinstate their banned track and field athletes to the Olympics suffered a further blow last night as the country’s weightlifting team were also thrown out en bloc. The International Weightlifting Federation ruled out all eight of the Russian contingent. Two of them — Tatiana Kashirina and Anastasia Romanova, had previous anti-doping rule violations. And four others were among those named in the McLaren report as having benefited from the country’s plot to cover up positive samples. Despite calls for a blanket ban from the Rio Games as punishment for their state-sponsored doping programme, 272 of Russia’s original team of 387 are in line to compete, according to their sports minister Vitaly Mutko. And World Rowing’s decision to ban 19 Russians on the grounds of a lack of reliable international testing is set to be taken to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. World Rowing’s approval process left just six rowers eligible to compete for Rio, meaning Russia could only compete in one event — the men’s four — and meant reserve crews from around the world have rushed to Brazil to compete. There was good news for Russia on Friday when their taekwondo governing body said it had received notification from the World Taekwondo Federation that all three of their competitors could compete in Rio. The country’s three tabletennis players have also been told they can participate. Russians hoping to compete in the boxing, golf, gymnastics and handball are still waiting to learn their fate. However, two-time Olympic gold medallist Yelena Isinbayeva said she had failed in her final attempt to make the team following the blanket ban on Russia’s track and field athletes by the IAAF. Isinbayeva had applied again for an individual exemption but was turned down. ‘Unfortunately they didn’t make an exception for me,’ she wrote on Instagram. ‘The miracle didn’t happen.’ Meanwhile, a new test developed to detect gene doping will not be used in Rio as it has not yet been approved by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The procedure has been developed in Australia to identify if an athlete is artificially adjusting their DNA to enhance performance. But samples can be re-tested up to 10 years after the Games and the IOC intend to later check for gene doping.