Russia waits as IOC reports new test failures

The International Olympic Committee reported 45 new doping failures on Friday from the 2008 Games in Beijing and London 2012, bringing the total number of positive drug test to 98 since a retesting programme was launched. (Photo: AP)

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.

The IOC’s executive board are to hold a conference call on Sunday to discuss barring Russia from the Olympics starting on August 5 over bombshell doping revelations.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport 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.

Russia is a sporting powerhouse whose absence from Rio would create the biggest crisis in decades for the Olympic movement and President Vladimir Putin launched a final push to avert a ban.

“The official position of the Russian authorities — the government, the president and all of us — is that in sport there is not and can be no place for doping,” Putin told government ministers. The Kremlin strongman ordered officials to cooperate with the IOC and World Anti-Doping Agency and Russia’s Olympic committee to establish an anti-doping commission.

Against the backdrop of the current doping scandal engulfing Russia the IOC reported separately on Friday 45 new doping failures from the last two Games, bringing the total number of positive drug tests to 98 since a retesting programme was launched.

The IOC has reanalysed more than 1,200 samples, with the emphasis on medal winners, in a bid to clean up the Olympics’ reputation.

It said it was not able to identify the athletes concerned or their nationalities for legal reasons but said 30 positives came back from Beijing, including for 23 medal winners, and 15 from London.

The IOC is facing international pressure to act tough on Russia and ban the entire team over incendiary revelations of a state-run doping system that has seen the country cheat its way to victory. Fourteen national anti-doping agencies including the United States, Canada and Germany sent a joint letter to IOC president Thomas Bach urging him to ban Russia from Rio.

Officials in Moscow have slammed the decision by CAS to reject its appeal against a ban from the world athletics body IAAF, calling it part of a broader political campaign by the West against Russia.

The suspension of the track and field team already means that star athletes like pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva and hurdler Sergey Shubenkov will not be in Rio. Isinbayeva — who has threatened to call time on her career over the ban —slammed the CAS ruling as a “funeral for athletics.”

Sports minister Vitaly Mutko said Moscow now hopes the IOC will defer to individual international sporting federations to decide whether other Russian squads can compete.