Olympic officials on Thursday cleared about 270 Russian athletes to compete at the Rio Olympics, "just one day before the opening ceremony, the TASS news agency reported, citing the head of the Russian Olympic Committee," according to Grohmann & Stubbs of REUTERS. Russian boxers, tennis players, judokas and shooters "were among those given the last-minute approval" by an IOC panel set up to review the eligibility of all Russian athletes previously cleared to compete by their int'l federations. Russian Olympic Committee President Alexander Zhukov said, "We have received documents on the admission of about 270 sportspeople, now we need to do the updated counting." That is about 70% of the 387 athletes Russia "initially planned to send" to the Games. Russia, which narrowly avoided a complete ban from the Olympics following revelations of state-backed doping, "had hoped to have between 272 and 280 athletes declared eligible for Rio after the IOC review." The IOC "chose not to impose a blanket ban on all Russian athletes at a meeting in July," but directed sports federations to allow Russians to compete "if they met a set of criteria, including a clean doping past and sufficient testing" at int'l events (REUTERS, 8/4). RT reported while making their decision, IOC President Thomas Bach said that the Olympic officials "had to follow the rules of justice," adding that "justice has to be independent from politics, and you cannot answer to a violation of a law by another violation of a law." He said, "This is a situation we do not want to happen ever again in sport, and therefore the IOC requested a full review of anti-doping system, and we are very happy that WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency] agrees with this request." Bach added that the body "will work closely with WADA to make the anti-doping system worldwide more robust and more efficient" (RT, 8/4).
