The Chef de Mission of the Australian Olympic Team, Kitty Chiller, has backed the IOC decision not to ban Russian athletes from the RIO Games saying " the IOC has set down a very strict criteria and the Russians still need to clear the high hurdles to be able to participate
in RIO".
Chiller told media in RIO under the conditions established by the IOC Executive Board, "no Russian athlete that has been sanctioned for a doping offence can compete at the RIO Games.
The 67 athletes banned by the International Athletics Federation (IAAF) are not competing in RIO. Their bans remain in force.
Russian athletes who want to compete need to convince their individual International Federation (IF) and provide evidence they are clean.
The IFs will determine the eligible Russian athletes only after the WADA Code has been applied.
A test done in Russia that says an athlete is "clean" is not sufficient to gain entry to the Games.
The IFs need to rely on international tests, in other words tests done outside Russia.
And IFs need to go to WADA and access the names of the athletes and the National Federations implicated in the McLaren Report.
No-one implicated, athletes, officials, of national sporting federations can apply for entry to the RIO Games.
Any Russian athlete who is accepted by the IOC as a Games competitor will be the subject of rigorous additional out-of- competition testing.
In a nutshell, the presumption of innocence cannot be applied to them, there is insufficient time for hearings with the Games so close. They have to prove they deserve to be at the Games" she said.
The fight against doping in sport remains a top priority for the IOC and the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC).
The current campaign to weed out the drug cheats has unearthed 98 athletes who are accused of taking performance enhancing drugs at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and the 2012 Games in London.
In regard to RIO 2016, my message to our athletes is to stay focused.
I will be urging them to concentrate on their own performances, and wipe Russia from their mindset" she said.
John Coates, President of the AOC and an IOC Vice President has spent the last three days advising the IOC on the legal aspects of today’s decision in his capacity as Chair of the IOC Legal Affairs Commission.
"We were mindful of the need for justice for clean athletes, we did not want to penalise athletes who are clean with a collective ban and therefore keeping them out of the Games.
The Executive Board was satisfied with the strict criteria that has been applied and that all Russian athletes must fulfil if they want to compete in RIO".
He was also be pleased to see the IOC take a very hard line on the "athlete’s entourage" who will banned from the Games and ultimately, if proven, dealt with under the WADA Code.
"For too long the athlete’s entourage has been causing grief on the sideline and escaping penalty, not any more".
The IOC President, Thomas Bach said, "it is now up to the clean athletes in Russia to be seen as role models, and to take a strong stance against doping in sport. They need to send a positive message to future generations of Russian athletes".
President Bach summed it all up when he said "no Russian athlete should suffer or be penalised if the athlete is not implicated in the doping system"
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