Doping: IOC backs IAAF Russia ban but leaves door ajar for some athletes

The International Olympic Committee has backed the sanctioning of Russia track and field athletes over the country’s lack of anti-doping efforts, but says individual Russian athletes could be cleared to compete at August’s Rio Games.

On Friday, athletics’ governing body the IAAF upheld its previous ban on Russian track and field athletes competing on the global stage.

And following Tuesday’s summit in Lausanne, the IOC said it planned to “fully respect the decision of the IAAF Council.”

However, IOC president Thomas Bach gave some hope to Russia’s athletes, saying he expected some individual Russians to take part if cleared by the IAAF and that “they will compete under the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee.”

Such a stance would be in direct contrast to that of the IAAF, which stated that any individual Russians allowed to compete “because they have been outside the country and subject to other, effective anti-doping systems” would “not be for Russia but as a neutral athlete.”

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But the IOC deemed competing under the Russian flag was appropriate as only the Russian Athletics Federation had been banned and not the Russian Olympic Committee.

However, in response the IAAF said Tuesday it would “now work with the IOC to ensure the decision is respected and implemented in full.”

Should Russian athletes only be allowed to compete under a Russian flag, it would create a potentially difficult situation for whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova, whose evidence effectively led to the revelations of systematic doping within Russian track and field.

Stepanova has been relocated to Canada but the 29-year-old middle-distance runner had hoped to qualify for and compete in Rio under the IOC flag.

Any Russian athletes hoping to compete in Rio would have to undergo further doping checks.

As will those from Kenya, which has also been declared non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency code and whose athletics team has also been threatened with possible Olympic exclusion in the past.

The IOC statement said that “the presumption of innocence of athletes from these countries” was currently “being put seriously into question.”

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Explaining the situation in both countries, Bach said: “In Kenya, you have a lack of funding and attention from national bodies, and in Russia you have serious allegations about manipulations of the doping system.

“In effect, it leads to the same challenge: To ensure the same playing field where the anti-doping system has been affected in different ways.”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - JUNE 14: A close-up of the Olympic medals during the Launch of Medals and Victory Ceremonies for the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games at the Future Arena in Olympic Park on June 14, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Alexandre Loureiro/Getty Images)

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Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov said the country’s clean athletes would appeal against the suspension and told the IOC summit they would take the matter to the Court of Arbitration of Sport, calling such a ban “legally indefensible.”

Russia has not ruled out a complete boycott of this year’s Olympics, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Asked if a wholesale boycott could prove a reality, Peskov told reporters via a conference call: “I can only say that no one wants to create a precedent like this.

“President Putin is a convinced supporter of Olympic ideals, and a convinced enemy of anything that may harm these ideals.

“But beyond all doubt, we intend to defend the interests of our sportsmen – I mean, those sportsmen who are not associated in any way with doping use.”

Read: Fearing Zika, Olympian freezes sperm

Bach defended the IAAF at the conclusion of the IOC summit, and said the aim of its own proposals was to “keep dopers away from Rio 2016 by doing everything in the disciplinary procedures following the comprehensive testing and pre-testing.”

He said officials planned to go after dopers’ entourage, including coaches and doctors, in a bid to further clean up the Games.

Bach also singled out the Russian Olympic Committee for praise, saying it had been “mentioned in a very positive way for their work” despite the potential for more allegations in the latest World Anti-Doping Agency independent commission report on allegations of systematic doping at the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014. That report is due out on July 15.

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The World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) new report is the latest twist to hit the Russian doping scandal, building on Professor Richard Mclaren's initial findings, published in July, which concluded doping was widespread among Russian athletes.

More than 1,000 Russian athletes across 30 sports -- including football -- benefited from state-sponsored doping, according to the latest report.

The doping program, across summer, winter and Paralympic sports, was in operation from 2011 to 2015, said Mr McLaren, who presented his latest findings at a news conference in London Friday.

WADA's initial report on alleged widespread drug use in international athletics concluded that senior figures including IAAF president Sebastian Coe (pictured) "could not have been unaware of the extent of doping."

Former WADA president Dick Pound chaired a press conference held in Munich on January 14, 2016 to present the 89-page report. It said "corruption was embedded" and "cannot be blamed on a small number of miscreants" within the IAAF.

A report by the IAAF's ethics committee claims a powerful trio blackmailed Russian distance runner Lilya Shobukhova into paying them off to keep results of her positive drug tests secret.

Russia's former athletics president Valentin Balakhnichev, its ex-chief coach for long-distance athletes Alexei Melnikov and former IAAF consultant Papa Massata Diack have all been banned for life. The report said "far from supporting the anti-doping regime, they subverted it." The IAAF's former anti-doping director Gabriel Dollé has been given a five-year ban.

The report claims Balakhnichev, Melnikov and Papa Massata Diack "conspired together ... to conceal for more than three years anti-doping violations by an athlete at what appeared to be the highest pinnacle of her sport. All three compounded the vice of what they did by conspiring to extort what were in substance bribes from Shobukhova by acts of blackmail."

Pound produced an independent report in November 2015 which detailed systemic doping in Russia along with an establishment effort to cover it up. He recommended Russia be banned from athletic competition, which it duly was by the IAAF.

The findings uncovered a "deeply-rooted culture of cheating at all levels" within Russian athletics. Asked if it amounted to state-sponsored doping, Pound told reporters: "In the sense of consenting to it, there's no other conclusion."

The report suggested the London 2012 Olympics -- in which Russia won 24 gold medals and finished fourth -- was "in a sense, sabotaged by the admission of athletes who should have not been competing."

Pound's report detailed "corruption and bribery practices at the highest levels of international athletics," evidence of which has been given to international crime-fighting organization Interpol for further investigation.

Senegal's Lamine Diack, former president of the IAAF, is being investigated by French police over claims he accepted bribes to defer sanctions against drug cheats from Russia. French prosecutors claim he took "more than €1 million ($1M)" for his silence. Diack has yet to comment.

Coe, a former Olympic gold medalist, has come under fire for his praise for predecessor Diack, whom he called the sport's "spiritual leader" when he took over the role in August 2015. He told CNN he would "do anything to fix our sport."

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