Russia on Friday made a last-ditch bid to avoid a blanket ban at the Rio Games over state-run doping, as a fresh batch of drug test failures from Beijing 2008 and London 2012 rocked the Olympics. However, as they launched a desperate rearguard action, the International Paralympic Federation (IPF) announced they were seeking a suspension that would sideline Russia from the Paralympics in Rio in September.
The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) executive board are to hold a conference call today to discuss barring Russia from the Olympics, which starts on Aug. 5, over bombshell doping revelations.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Thursday rejected an appeal by Russia’s track and field team against their suspension from Rio in a decision seen as a key indicator as the IOC debates whether to kick out the whole Russian team.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said that in light of this week’s McLaren report, it expected to announce a decision on whether it would suspend Russia in the week commencing Aug. 1.
The IPC said they have been provided with the names of the Paralympic athletes associated with 35 “disappearing positive samples” from the Moscow anti-doping laboratory that were highlighted in McLaren’s report.
They are also sending 19 samples from the 2014 Paralympic Winter Games held in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi for immediate further analysis, after they were identified as having been potentially doctored as part of a sample-swapping regime.
The Paralympics take place in Rio from Sept. 7 to Sept. 18.
“The McLaren report revealed an unimaginable scale of institutionalized doping in Russian sport that was orchestrated at the highest level. McLaren’s findings are of serious concern for everyone committed to clean and honest sport,” IPC president Philip Craven said.
Against a backdrop of the doping scandal engulfing Russia, the IOC on Friday reported separately 45 new doping failures from the past two Games, bringing the total number of positive drug tests to 98 since a retesting program was launched. The IOC has reanalyzed more than 1,200 samples, focusing on medal winners, in a bid to clean up the Olympics’ reputation.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier