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271-strong Olympic team to be cleanest at Rio: Russia
August 5, 2016, 5:48 am

Russian athletes bound for Rio at the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow, Russia, July 28, 2016 [Xinhua]

Russian athletes headed for Rio at the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow, Russia, July 28, 2016 [Xinhua]

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced Thursday that 271 Russian athletes have been allowed to participate in the Rio Games which will officially open on Friday.

“The result from the IOC Review Panel is as follows: 271 athletes will form the team entered by the Russian National Olympic Committee (ROC) from the original entry list of 389 athletes,” the IOC said in a press release.

Russian boxers, judokas and shooters were among those given last-minute approval by the IOC.

In July, the IAAF prohibited all Russian athletes from taking part in international competitions, including the upcoming Rio Olympics, over doping allegations.

The IOC chose not to impose a blanket ban on all Russian athletes at a meeting in July, but directed sports federations to allow them to compete if they met a set of criteria, including a clean doping past and sufficient testing at international events.

This decision was made despite calls for a blanket ban on the Russian athletes from the World Anti-Doping Agency.

The IOC review panel, made up of IOC Athletes’ Commission chairwoman Claudia Bokel of Germany, IOC Medical Commission chairman Ugur Erdener of Turkey and Spain’s Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., was eventually tasked with reviewing the international federations’ decisions in relation to the entry of each individual athlete.

Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) head Alexander Zhukov said on Thursday that the Russian team would now be the cleanest at the Rio Games.

“Not one team underwent such strict requirements as Russian athletes,” he told a news conference in Rio. “No athletes from any country … had the rules changed to bar those previously guilty of doping.”

 

TBP and Agencies