Russia breathe relieved after the IOC decision

Russia and its athletes Monday issued a sigh of relief following the decision of the International Olympic Committee ( IOC ) not to exclude the country from the Rio Games (5-21 August), delegating that responsibility to the international federations.

That decision provoked much criticism in the Olympic movement, since the independent report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) revealed a doping system in the Russian State sport between 2011 and 2015.

WADA was so "disappointed" while USADA doping agency the United States , he spoke of "disaster" IOC.

In Russia, where the sport and the number of medals are a matter of state, the relief was immense. "Of course we welcome" the decision of the IOC, estimated spokesman Dmitri Peskov Kremlin, pointing to a "positive decision".

"Not a bad choice for us. It has been taken and must be respected," he told AFP chairman of Sport of the Duma (lower house of parliament), Dmitri Svichtchev, but regretted that Russian athletes who have given positive for doping can not compete in Rio.

"You can not punish someone twice for the same offense"; he said. The rider Ilnur Zakarin, this year's winner of a stage in the Tour de France and suspended in 2009 for making steroid, would be one of those affected by this measure.

The quadruple world champion Yulia Efimova swimming, who tested positive in 2014 and was suspended 16 months will also be absent in Rio, like his partner Natalia Lovtsova suspended in 2013.

Olympic medalist weightlifter Tatiana Kashirina, passed in 2006, will also be deprived of the Games.

- Gymnasts and fencers and in Rio -

Russian athletes can not go to Rio if they are not authorized by their respective federations, something that will influence his doping history and been subjected to "credible checks" performed outside Russia.

The first to react was the International Tennis Federation (ITF), which gave the green light to the participation of eight players and tennis players selected by Russia. The decision of the International Judo Federation, which had supported Russia even before the IOC could decide soon follow suit.

The leaders of the Russian federation fencing and pentathlon announced Monday that its athletes will be allowed to participate in Rio.


Although some athletes will not wait for the resolution of their situation to move to Rio. This is the case of fencers or gymnasts, who are already in the Brazilian city.

The bulk of the Russian delegation will fly on Thursday.

For the 68 private athletes of the Games due to the suspension of the Russian Athletics Federation, there is instead the lesser option after the decision on Thursday the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne.

"Our battle for Rio is finished", the star pole vault lamented Yelena Isinbayeva , who hoped to accomplish in the Brazilian cites a third gold medal before retiring.

Under the criteria set, the athlete Yuliya Stepanova, who sounded the alert in the first revelations about the system of state doping in Russia, was not authorized by the IOC to participate in the Games in Rio. The broker 800 meters he was suspended between 2011 and 2013 for irregularities in his biological passport.

"Stepanova got what he deserved," the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda estimated, while one of its journalists had compared to the athlete with the collaborators of the Nazis.