Rio Olympics 2016: IOC eases Russia ban; World Sailing Federation allow Pavel Sozykin to compete

Rio de Janeiro: The International Olympic Committee has eased its ban on Russian athletes from the Rio Games following accusations of state-run doping, sports officials said Wednesday. [caption id=“attachment_2841540” align=“alignleft” width=“382”]  Representational Image. Reuters[/caption] The World Sailing Federation said it had decided to end a ban on Russian 470 class contender Pavel Sozykin after receiving the “new guidance” from the IOC. The IOC sent out a statement on Monday to the 28 federations that run the summer Olympics sports to ease the way that the report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) should be interpreted, officials said. It had previosly said that any athlete “implicated” in the state-run doping revealed in the McLaren report should be excluded from the Rio Olympics. “The IOC has indicated that an athlete should not be considered as ‘implicated’ if the McLaren list does not refer to a prohibited substance which would have given rise to an anti-doping rules violation,” said the sailing federation. It said that Sozykin was named in the McLaren report “in connection with the Disappearing Positive Methodology”, or manipulation of samples, “the report did not include specific information as to whether the positive test occurred in-competition or out-of-competition.” It added that the substance Sozykin was accused of taken “would not have resulted in a sanction.” World Sailing also said Sozykin “has had at least two subsequent anti-doping tests with no adverse results.” It said that if further investigations find Sozykin guilty of an offence any results he obtained since October 2014 would be disqualified.