Russian athletes banned from Rio 2016 Olympics as IAAF upholds suspension

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has upheld its ban of Russia's track and field team over allegations of doping. This means the team will be excluded from this summer's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

"Although good progress has been made, the IAAF council was unanimous that RUSAF (Russian Athletic Federation) had not met the reinstatement conditions," IAAF head Sebastian Coe said at a press conference in Vienna. "And the Russian athletes could not credibly return to international competition without undermining the confidence of their competitors and the public. As a result, RUSAF has not been reinstated to membership of the IAAF at this stage."

While the ruling appears final, the main hope of competing in Rio for Russian athletes who have not been found guilty of doping lies with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which meets with other sports bodies next Tuesday in Lausanne, Switzerland.

There, officials will look into “whether and if individual athletes should be given individual justice,”

Many Russian athletes who have not tested positive for a banned substance are expected to take their cases to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“The athletes with clean records who have never used banned drugs will be making their own decisions now,” RUSAF president, Dmitry Shlyakhtin, told RT. “Clean athletes still have chances to go [to the Olympics] if they take their cases to court.”

Related Post: Maria Sharapova Banned For Two Years Over Drug Use

Two-time Olympic pole-vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva vowed to appeal to a human rights court after the decision was announced.