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Russian athletes will not be allowed to compete at Rio 2016

Russian track and field athletes are set to miss the Rio Olympics after the sport's governing bod...



Russian athletes will not be a...
Soccer

Russian athletes will not be allowed to compete at Rio 2016

Russian track and field athletes are set to miss the Rio Olympics after the sport's governing body decided unanimously not to lift a ban.

The IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) provisionally suspended the country's sportsmen and women from taking part in overseas competitions last November.

It came after a WADA report claimed there was a state-sponsored doping programme and corruption by sports officials.

IAAF officials met in Vienna to vote on whether to readmit Russia - but the country has not fulfilled a set of criteria, including reforming its anti-doping agency.

The Russian ministry of sport said it was "extremely disappointed" by the vote result and "clean athletes' dreams are being destroyed because of the reprehensible behaviour of other athletes and officials".

Pole vault star Yelena Isinbayeva said she would challenge the IAAF decision in court.

"This is a human rights violation. I will not remain silent, I will take measures," the two-time Olympic champion told the TASS news agency.

"I will appeal to the human rights court," she said, without specifying in which court she planned to challenge the ruling.

Sky's sports correspondent Paul Kelso said the world governing body and the agency had to be able to carry out testing on Russian athletes without interference.

But a new report by WADA (the world anti-doping agency) claimed officials have been threatened with deportation by armed members of the FSB (formerly the KGB), he added.

The report said hundreds of attempts to carry out drug tests on Russian athletes between February and May this year had been thwarted.

And drug testers faced intimidation and threats from armed Russian security forces while athletes continued to evade doping control officers.

In its attempt to overturn the ban in time for its athletes to compete in Brazil this August, Russia has announced a raft of reforms including the introduction of compulsory anti-doping classes in schools.

Speaking in St Petersburg, President Vladimir Putin insisted there was no state-sponsored doping in Russia.

He said: "There isn't and cannot be any support on the government level of violations in sport, especially on the question of doping."

And Mr Putin hit out at possibility that clean Russian athletes could miss the Olympics over their teammates' use of performance-enhancing drugs.

"There cannot be collective responsibility of all athletes," Mr Putin said.

"The whole team cannot bear responsibility for one who committed a violation" of anti-doping regulations.

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