RIO DE JANEIRO — A ban on all Russian weightlifters dealt a new blow to the country ahead of an International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting Saturday that will be dominated by multiple doping scandals.
New criticism of the athletes’ village in Rio added to the dark clouds hanging over the Games which start in one week.
The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) banned all eight Russian contenders — five men and three women — entered for Rio.
About 117 Russian competitors from the 387 initially put forward by the Russian Olympic Committee have now been banned from the Games. They include 67 track and field athletes.
Weightlifting’s reputation “has been seriously damaged on multiple times and levels by the Russians, therefore an appropriate sanction was applied in order to preserve the status of the sport,” the IWF said.
“We would like to highlight the extremely shocking and disappointing statistics regarding the Russian weightlifters.”
Among those banned, Artem Okulov is a world champion while Ruslan Albegov took a bronze medal at the 2012 London Games and Tatiana Kashirina a silver.
The IOC has taken fierce criticism for not ordering a blanket ban on Russia after an independent report said there was state-organized doping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
The IOC executive is to meet Saturday and Sunday to discuss the crisis. The full IOC meets from Monday.
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) president Craig Reedie, who is also an IOC vice president, is to give a report on the agency’s activities.
Reedie had led calls for a blanket ban on Russia over the doping.
The IOC decided last week however that individual sporting federations had to examine Russian entries and decide whether they should be allowed to compete.
The Olympic committee will take a final decision on Russian entries based on the recommendations. It is not yet known when this will be announced however.
Boxing, golf, gymnastics and taekwondo are among sports still to have announced their decisions.
A small fire at the Rio athletes village Friday, which forced the evacuation of the Australian delegation, left a new stain on preparations for the Games.
Team spokesman Mike Tancred said “there was a lot of smoke” but that athletes returned after fire fighters controlled the blaze. “There was no big drama,” he said.
Australia had led a boycott over conditions at the village last week. And Rio de Janeiro mayor Eduardo Paes lashed out Friday at the Olympics organizing committee, accusing it of “serious problems” in managing the village.
Paes blamed the Rio2016 committee for a slew of problems at the village, which has been his public relations nightmare all week.
US includes Hartfield
The US added long jumper Michael Hartfield to its track team after Marquis Dendy withdrew with a leg injury.
Hartfield finished fifth at US Olympic trials earlier this month and was next in line for a spot because he had reached an Olympic qualifying standard earlier in the year.
SK gymnast to miss Rio
South Korean gymnast Lee Go-im will miss next month’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro after fracturing her left arm during practice at an Olympic venue.
The Korean Olympic Committee said the 15-year-old will return to South Korea for surgery, and that Lee Eun-ju, who finished second in last month’s national trials, will take her spot in the Olympic artistic gymnastics competition. The high-school athlete had been the youngest South Korean to qualify for the Rio de Janeiro Games.
