Three Russian cyclists banned from Rio, three more at risk

Russia’s Olympic committee (ROC) has removed three cyclists from the team heading to the Rio Games while three more, who were potentially implicated in the McLaren report, are under investigation, the UCI announced yesterday. The trio withdrawn by the ROC had previously been sanctioned for anti-doping violations, which meant they failed to meet the eligibility criteria put in place for Russian athletes by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The latest doping scandal to rock Olympic and Russian sport was triggered this month by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren whose report for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) detailed an elaborate doping system directed by the Moscow sports ministry and used in more than 30 sports over four years.
The IOC sparked fierce criticism on Sunday when it resisted a blanket ban on the country in favour of allowing individual sports federations to make the call on which Russians can go to Rio. The UCI decision takes the number of Russian athletes suspended from Rio to 111 of the 387 initially announced by the ROC.
Meanwhile, United World Wrestling, the governing body for Olympic forms of wrestling, said a special commission it set up had recommended that 16 of the 17 Russian wrestlers who qualified for the Rio Olympics should be allowed to take part. It said in a statement the 16 had been tested in accredited laboratories outside Russia, and were not mentioned in a McLaren report. It said one competitor, Viktor Lebedev, should not take part in Rio because he had a positive doping test in 2006.
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has included four Russian players in the draws, “pending the validation of the IOC.”  The BWF held the draws for the Rio Games on Tuesday and included Vladimir Malkov and Natalia Perminova in the men’s and women’s singles as well as the men’s doubles partnership of Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov.
“We have had a rigid drug-testing programme, especially leading up to Rio 2016 and all four Russian athletes have been tested in and out of competition and their samples have been analysed outside of Russia,” Secretary General Thomas Lund said during the draw. The badminton competition at the Rio takes place from Aug. 11-20.

Russia’s depleted squad leave for Rio
Some 70 Russian competitors from the country’s depleted Olympics team flew out from Moscow for Rio yesterday. Dressed in red and white sports uniforms the Olympic hopefuls — including Russia’s volleyball, handball and synchronised swimming squads — received a warm send-off despite the scandal over state-run doping.  “They have got us fired up — but in a good way. We are going to fight more to prove that it is difficult to break Russia,” handball player Polina Kuznetsova told AFP. “We will fight for those who were not able to go.”
“We anxiously waited for this day, we worried. You know yourselves what the situation is,” Alexander Zhukov, the head of Russia’s Olympic Committee was quoted as saying.
“It is now time to put all doubts aside: the Russian team is going to the Olympics.”
Some Russian competitors are already in Brazil acclimatising to the conditions but despite yesterday’s triumphal farewell it remains unclear how many of the 387-strong squad Moscow named last week will eventually compete.
The track and field team — including stars Yelena Isinbayeva and Sergey Shubenkov — has been banned en masse and now rowers, swimmers, weightlifters and canoeists have been added to the list. Zhukov said that less than 100 Russian competitors were still waiting to find out their fates and that the final makeup of the team should be announced over the weekend just a few days before the start of the Games.
Meanwhile, Sergei Tetyukhin, the captain of the Russian men’s volleyball team, will carry the country’s flag during the opening ceremony, twice Olympic pole vault champion Isinbayeva said. Isinbayeva is one of the athletes unable to attend the Rio Games because of the decision by the governing body International Association of Athletics Federation to ban Russian track and field athletes from Rio in response to systematic state-sponsored doping by the country.
“Our flag bearer at the Rio Olympics has already been determined. Voleyball player Sergei Tetyukhin, who is a great sportsman and an Olympic champion, will be given the honour,” Isinbayeva wrote on her Instagram page. The 40-year-old Tetyukhin won four Olympic medals, including gold at London 2012. The Rio Olympic Games will be his sixth.