Despite calls from the World Anti-Doping Agency to ban Russia from participating in the 2016 Summer Olympics (which are just, like, 12 days away) the IOC decided against such a measure, and will instead leave it up to individual sports federations to determine whether Russian athletes are eligible in their sports or not.
ESPN reports the World Anti-Doping Agency's suggestion came after allegations of rampant state-sponsored cheating by the Russians. Such calls reportedly intensified after one of the Anti-Doping Agency's lawyers (Richard McLaren) made a report about Russia's use of an extensive doping program. McLaren's findings included that Russia was tainting their athletes' urine samples at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, and that their doping program had polluted a combined 28 sports from both the Winter and Summer Olympics between 2011-2015.
The IOC's ruling also reportedly prohibited any Russian athletes ever sanctioned for using PEDs from competing in the upcoming contests.
Recently Russian track-and-field athletes were banned by its governing body, the IAAF, after that organization got out ahead of the news cycle.
IOC President Thomas Bach commented on the reasoning behind the committee's decision, which came after a three-hour teleconference with the IOC executive board, saying, "We had to balance the collective responsibility and the individual justice to which every human being and athlete is entitled to," before later adding "An athlete should not suffer and should not be sanctioned for a system in which he was not implicated."
There are over 300 Russian athletes outside of track and field that have qualified for the Rio games this year, though the odds of them being disqualified by individual sports federations seems like a long shot because, as we said, the games are just 12 days away.
As for the Russian spin on this? While the country has conceded that some of their competitors doped, they say the government wasn't connected with it, and the Russian media claims that this is all a political controversy spearheaded by the United States.
