Russia barred from Rio Olympics 2016

London, July21: Russia has been banned from participating in the Rio games after it lost an appeal filed against suspension of its athletes.  The ban on Russian field and track athletes from the games by the International Olympic Committee(IOC) comes after the country was accused of facilitating a state sponsored doping regime. The decision has been upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“The Cas panel confirmed that the ROC is not entitled to nominate Russian track and field athletes to compete at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games considering that they are not eligible to participate under the IAAF competition rules,” a spokesman said.

The move comes after revelations by the McLaren report, compiled by Dr Richard McLaren that found evidence of manipulation of urine samples of athletes across a majority of summer and winter Olympic sport events.

Meanwhile the IOC said it plans to re-test all Russians who competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi.

Russia won more than 30 medals in Sochi of which several of them were gold.