Russia Nearing Golden Win In Supreme Chess Game With Feds & Clean Sport At Rio 2016?

FINA’s lack of commitment and care towards clean athletes may be completed today if Russian reports that all remaining five Russian swimmers among seven previous barred by the International Olympic Committee and the international swimming federation have been let back into Rio 2016 at the 11th hour.

According to Russian media, citing Vladimir Salnikov, the president of the Russian Swimming Federation, Yulia Efimova*, Natalia Lovtsova**, Daria Ustinova*, Michael Dovgaluk* and Anastasia Krapivina*, may be about to join Sun Yang*, Park Tae-hwan* and every other previously suspended swimmer on the doping case file in the race here in Rio.

The official start lists online do not include Efimova and Co but Russian reports suggest that they soon will; and all that just as athletes prepare to celebrate the Opening Ceremony.

The chess game played by Russia may be all but complete: the Russian Olympic Committee agreed to abide by the IOC’s rule that it would keep all previous doping cases out of action in Rio; the IOC then passed that agreement and the new rule on to international federations such as FINA knowing that the Court of Arbitration for Sport had not only thrown the Osaka rule out on the basis that it represented ‘double jeopardy’ but had done so with advice attached: change your rule to make it one condition and all will be well.

The IOC did no such thing and as such the ROC, the IOC and FINA must surely have known at the time of barring Efimova and Co that the condition would not stand and all would be back in to race in Rio.

The rider remains: the IOC’s three-man panel set up to make final decisions can still refuse to extend an invitation to the five Russian swimmers. Given all else that has come to pass, that seems unlikely, though not impossible.

Salnikov, a man who faces questions about two missing EPO tests among Russian swimmers in 2009 that have yet to be reported to the World Anti-Doping Agency or FINA in the midst of events that break the WADA Code, told “R-Sport” that FINA had now “sent to Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) documents for admission of five Russian swimmers for the Olympic Games”.

Quite what that means remains to be seen: FINA has already been granted permission, in a sense, by CAS to make its mind up and proceed. If FINA is now letting the Russians back in, it must take the responsibility for that and send the entries

And all because the IOC and everyone downwards did not support the WADA recommendation to bar Russian from Rio and make the point that …

continue reading in source www.swimvortex.com