IOC panel to have final say on Russian athletes' participation in Rio Olympics

PanARMENIAN.Net - The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says a three-person panel will have the final say on which Russian athletes can compete at the Rio Games, BBC News reports.

Last week the IOC said individual sports' governing bodies must decide if Russian competitors are clean amid claims of state-sponsored doping.

But it now says the newly convened panel "will decide whether to accept or reject that final proposal".

More than 250 Russian athletes have so far been cleared to compete.

The three-person panel comprises Ugur Erdener, president of World Archery and head of the IOC medical and scientific commission, Claudia Bokel of the IOC athletes commission, and Spanish IOC member Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr, son of the ex-IOC president of the same name.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) had recommended all Russian athletes be banned after its independently commissioned report found evidence of a four-year "doping programme" across the "vast majority" of Olympic sports.

The IOC stopped short of applying a blanket ban in a move criticised by Wada and others, while swimmers Vladimir Morozov and Nikita Lobintsev have become the first Russian athletes to appeal against their ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The Olympics start in Rio on Friday, August 5.