Olympic movement can hardly exist without Russia'

Rio de Janeiro, Aug 7 

The world Olympic movement cannot exist and develop without Russia, the president of the United World Wrestling (UWW) Nenad Lalovic has said.

Lalovic said a report of the World Anti Doping Agency's (WADA) independent commission, chaired by Canadian sports law professor Richard McLaren, named 20 Russian wrestlers but the UWW would check only two of them for doping abuse, reports Tass.

"Russia has to work towards removing all doubts and becoming the leader in fighting doping. This is the right time for it. I am sure that there are no problems of which we had been told (in the Russian Wrestling Federation). But if there is some fault, then Russia should react to it. Of course, the Olympic movement is impossible without Russia," Lalovic stressed on Saturday.

He also said that UWW has no claims with regards to Russian Wrestling Federation (RWF). Only two wrestlers will be checked following McLaren's report.

On July 18, WADA's independent commission, chaired by Richard McLaren, submitted a report on results of investigation into accusations of doping manipulations at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

The WADA executive committee used the report as a basis for its recommendations to the International Olympic Committee (IOC); the International Paralympic Committee and international sport federations to ban Russian athletes from the competitions.

On July 28, ROC President Alexander Zhukov said 16 out of 17 wrestlers who applied for participation in the Olympic Games would compete in Rio as part of the Russian Olympic squad in Greco-Roman wrestling, freestyle and women's wrestling.

Two-time world freestyle champion Viktor Lebdev was barred from competing in Rio because of previous doping violations in compliance with the new criteria of authorising Russian athletes to participate at the 2016 Games.

Lebedev appealed against the decision in the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Igor Kazikov, the head of the Russian Olympic delegation, on Saturday said the IOC panel had cleared Lebedev of all the charges and had authorised him to compete at Rio.