Russia’s track and field team is banned from the summer Olympic Games because the country has not given up its doping culture, but exceptions will be considered for clean athletes, world athletics body IAAF ruled yesterday.
This is the first time that a large number of athletes from one country is excluded from Olympic Games.
“Although good progress has been made, the IAAF Council was unanimous that (Russian athletics association) RusAF had not met the reinstatement conditions and that Russian athletes could not credibly return to international competition without undermining the confidence of their competitors and the public,” IAAF president Sebastian Coe said after a governing council meeting in Vienna.
IAAF’s council had met to consider whether Russia had set up a functioning anti-doping structure in response to a report by world anti-doping agency WADA that detailed systematic cheating in Russian athletics.
“The deep-seated culture of tolerance or worse for doping that got RusAF suspended in the first place seems not to have changed materially,” said Rune Andersen, head of the IAAF’s Russia task force.
There still wasn’t a strong anti-doping infrastructure in Russia, and doping tests were still being hampered, Anderson added.
The decision not to reinstate the Russian association means that Russian athletes remain ineligible to compete in international competitions including the European Championships and the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in August.
A special IAAF body will consider those who get tested outside Russia and who can prove that they are not tainted by the Russian doping system to apply for permission to compete as neutral athletes.
“There won’t be many athletes that would manage to get through the crack in that door,” Andersen cautioned.
In addition, any individual athlete who has made an extraordinary contribution to the fight against doping should be able to apply for permission to compete.
“In particular, Yuliya Stepanova’s case should be considered favourably,” an IAAF statement said.
It was middle-distance runner Stepanova’s allegations of systematic doping in Russian sports made in a documentary by German network ARD broadcast in December 2014 which led to the suspension of Russian athletics.
Russian President Vladimir Putin  condemned as “unfair” the IAAF decision.