Rio De Janerio, Aug 5 (IANS) The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced on Thursday that 271 Russian athletes have been allowed to participate in the Rio Games which will officially open on Friday.
"The result from the IOC Review Panel is as follows: 271 athletes will form the team entered by the Russian National Olympic Committee (ROC) from the original entry list of 389 athletes," the IOC said in a press release.
In July, the IAAF prohibited all Russian athletes from taking part in international competitions, including the upcoming Rio Olympics, over doping allegations.
Despite calls for a blanket ban on the Russian athletes from the World Anti-Doping Agency, the IOC later made a decision not to ban the entire Russian Olympic team from participating in the Rio Olympics, choosing to leave it to the individual sports federations to decide on athletes' fate.
The IOC review panel, made up of IOC Athletes' Commission chairwoman Claudia Bokel of Germany, IOC Medical Commission chairman Ugur Erdener of Turkey and Spain's Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., was eventually tasked with reviewing the international federations' decisions in relation to the entry of each individual athlete.
Moscow, Aug 4
The review panel of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has permitted the Russian boxing team to compete at the Olympics, the International Boxing Association (AIBA) said on Thursday.
"In accordance with the decision of the IOC Executive Bureau (EB) of July 24th AIBA has carried out an individual analysis of the anti-doping record of each of the 11 Russian boxers qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and submitted its recommendation on their eligibility to the IOC based on the criteria outlined in the IOC EB decision," an AIBA statement said.
"That process is now complete and confirmation has been received from the IOC Review Panel," the statement added.
The Russian boxers eligible to compete at the Rio Olympics include Vasilii Yegorov (49 kilogram), Misha Aloian (52 kg), Vladimir Nikitin (56 kg), Adlan Abdurashidov (60 kg), Vitaly Dunaytsev (64 kg), Andrey Zamkovoy (69 kg), Artem Chebotarev (75 kg), Petr Khamukov (81 kg) and Evgeny Tishchenko (91 kg).
The Russian female boxing team will be represented by Anastassiia Beliakova (60 kg) and Iaroslava Iakushina (75 kg).
The independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) chaired by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren released the now-infamous July 18 report on the results of a probe into the accusations of doping and manipulation of tests by Russian athletes and officials at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
According to the details, the commission claimed it had found evidence that Russia's sports ministry and the centre for the training of Russian national teams and the Federal Security Service had covered up a doping program in Russian sports.
The report from WADA's commission stated in particular that the investigation registered a total of 643 cases of "Disappearing Positive Test Results" in Russia between 2012 and 2015 involving athletes from 30 sports.
As a result, WADA suggested that the International Olympic Committe, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and all international sports federations ban Russian athletes from all international sports competitions, including Rio 2016.
