Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva has applied to world athletics governing body IAAF to compete at the Rio Olympics despite Russia’s ban, athletics authorities in Moscow said yesterday. “Isinbayeva sent her application on Wednesday,” Alla Glushchenko, the spokeswoman for the Russian athletics federation, told AFP.
The IAAF voted this month to maintain Russia’s suspension over evidence of state-sponsored doping in athletics but left the door ajar for a few clean Russian athletes to compete in Rio as neutrals. The IAAF proposed that Russian athletes apply for reinstatement on a case-by-case basis based on drug testing from credible programmes outside Russia. Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko has said that 67 Russian athletes will submit individual applications but no list of the names has been released. Glushchenko said that world champion hurdler Sergey Shubenkov and long jumper Daria Klishina had also submitted their applications to IAAF in the past days.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said last week that Russian athletes screened by the IAAF could compete under the Russian flag, a prospect IAAF later dismissed. Isinbayeva, who has always steered clear from doping scandals, has pledged she would not compete under any other flag than the Russian tricolour. Bach’s announcement revived the two-time Olympic champion’s Rio dreams, but IAAF’s strict criteria suggest that the applications of Russian-based athletes are likely to be rejected. Isinbayeva last week won the Russian national title with a 4.90-metre vault, the highest result recorded internationally this season.
She said that last week’s national championship would be the last track and field meet of her career if she is not allowed to compete in Rio. The qualification deadline to compete at the Rio Games is on July 18.

Adams to lead British boxing challenge
Britain will send its largest boxing squad to the Olympic Games for more than 30 years, the team said yesterday. Ten men and two women have been named in the 12-boxer squad, including Olympic flyweight champion Nicola Adams who is attempting to become the first Briton to retain an Olympic title.
For the men, Commonwealth champion Joe Joyce will fight at super heavyweight with Lawrence Okolie named in the heavyweight division for Rio. “This is the largest boxing squad we’ve taken to an Olympic Games since Los Angeles 1984,” Team GB’s Chef de Mission Mark England said.
Nicola Adams said: “Britain has never had a two-time Olympic champion so I am really looking forward to defending my title in Rio and having the opportunity to make history for a second time.” Britain is the third most successful nation in boxing at the Olympics having won 53 medals — 17 gold, 12 silver and 24 bronze.

S Korea to co-operate with Park appeal against Rio ban
South Korea’s Olympic committee said it would fully co-operate with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) after swim star Park Tae-Hwan appealed against his Rio ban over doping.
But a spokesman declined to say whether the committee would abide by any CAS ruling on Park’s case. The multiple Olympic medallist has sought ‘an urgent ruling’ from the Lausanne-based CAS by July 8 — the deadline for South Korea to select their Rio swimming team.
Park completed an 18-month suspension in April after testing positive for an anabolic steroid in out-of-competition controls before the 2014 Asian Games. But he remains barred from competing in Rio under a Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) rule which prohibits athletes from representing South Korea for three years after the expiration of any doping ban.
“Once the CAS begins its review, representatives for Park Tae-Hwan and the KOC will have to appear,” a KOC spokesman told AFP. “When we receive a message about that, we will co-operate fully and accordingly,” he said. Should Park’s appeal be upheld, the spokesman was non-committal on what action the KOC would take. “We will first have to see the final ruling by the CAS and then decide on the necessary steps,” he stressed.
The CAS does not have the power to force national sports bodies to follow its decisions, although court officials report compliance with about 90 % of rulings.
Park’s legal team argues that the KOC regulation is unfairly punitive and has pre-emptively sought an injunction from a district court in Seoul to make any CAS ruling binding on the national committee. Park has repeatedly begged for a chance to compete in what would be his third, and probably last, Olympics — at one point getting down on his hands and knees during a press conference.
The 26-year-old was the poster boy of South Korean swimming — courted by advertisers and idolised by fans — before his positive test was revealed in January last year. He won 400m freestyle gold and 200m freestyle silver at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and two silver medals at the 2012 London Olympics, as well as 400m world titles in 2007 and 2011.

Brazil lends $895mn to Rio to guarantee safety
Brazil’s government disbursed 2.9bn reais ($895mn) to cover Olympic security spending by the state of Rio de Janeiro, which declared a state of fiscal emergency just weeks ahead of the global sporting event.
A presidential measure published in the government’s Official Gazette confirmed the emergency loan, an effort to guarantee safety as half a mn foreign visitors flock to Rio in the midst of its worst crisis in decades.
Brazil’s grinding economic recession is stoking crime and straining public finances, leading to threats of police strikes on eve of the Rio Olympics, which are set to open on Aug. 5.
The first Games to be held in South America were originally planned to showcase Brazil’s ascent as a global power, but will be held amid political turmoil, a grinding recession and concern about an outbreak of the Zika virus. Heightening security fears ahead of the Games, parts of a mutilated body washed up on the sands of Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, just metres (yards) from where beach volleyball athletes will compete in the Olympics.
The government is also seeking to step up security at Rio’s Galeao international airport in the wake of recent attacks in Brussels and Istanbul. In addition to the public safety scare, there are serious doubts that work will be finished in time for the Games on a metro line connecting downtown Rio to the Olympic Village. The state government has requested an additional 500mn reais to finish the rail line, but those extra funds were left out of loan. The federal government said that the emergency loan for security spending will free up state funds for the metro.