Olympics: Sports court to rule on Russian athletes competing at Rio by July 21

Athletics’ governing body the IAAF and the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) have agreed to let the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rule on whether Russian athletes can compete at the Rio Games, CAS said Monday.

Athletics’ governing body the IAAF and the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) have agreed to let the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rule on whether Russian athletes can compete at the Rio Games, CAS said Monday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach. (AP)

The ROC, the International Association of Athletics Federations and 68 Russian athletes have reached “a specific arbitration agreement” which lets CAS decide whether the IAAF’s blanket ban of the entire Russian track and field team was valid, a CAS statement said.

“The parties have agreed to an expedited procedure which should conclude on 21 July 2016,” it added.

The IAAF ban followed whistleblower revelations of massive, state-sponsored doping within Russia’s track and field programme; the ban was subsequently ratified by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Last month, the IAAF said only individual Russian athletes who could definitively prove they were not tainted by the country’s disgraced system would be cleared for the Games, which start on August 5.

CAS spokeswoman Katy Hogg told AFP that the court will not be making a case by case review of each athlete’s record, but will be assessing the validity of the IAAF’s decision to ban the entire federation.

The ROC and the 68 athletes have specifically asked the Lausanne-based court to “order that any Russian athlete who is not currently the subject of any period of ineligibility for the commission of an anti-doping rule violation may participate at the 2016 Olympic Games”.