It seems as though the dust has finally settled in the ongoing Russian doping saga following the IOC announcement that they cleared 271 of the 389 Russian athletes submitted to compete at the 2016 Olympic Games.
Among those cleared are a total of 32 swimmers who will be competing at the Games. Both Vlad Morozov and Nikita Lobinstev were given clearance to compete after both being named as part of the “disappearing positives” program revealed in the McLaren report on systematic Russian doping.
While both Morozov and Lobinstev were cleared for competition, the most high-profile doping swimmer, Yulia Efimova, was denied a spot on the Olympic team after appealing the decision to the CAS earlier this week.
Daria Ustinova, Mikhail Dovgaluk, and Natalia Lovtcova were also all removed from the Russian roster prior to the IOC ruling. Marathon swimmer Anastasia Krappivina was as removed as well.
While many of their top stars such as Efimova and Ustinova were removed from the roster, they still have plenty of top contenders who could fight for the podium in Rio.
Morozov is one of the biggest names, a sprint guru who’s in the medal hunt in both the 50 and 100m freestyles.
Anton Chupkov could be a threat in the breaststroke events, and the depth on the Russian relays can never be overlooked.
The full roster is below:
- Sofia Andreeva
- Viktoriya Andreeva
- Daria Chikunova
- Svetlana Chimrova
- Anastasiya Fesikova
- Natalya Lovtsova
- Daria Mullakaeva
- Rozaliya Nasretdinova
- Arina Openysheva
- Veronika Popova
- Vyacheslav Andrusenko
- Anton Chupkov
- Andrey Grechin
- Danila Izotov
- Ilya Khomenko
- Evgeny Koptelov
- Alexander Krasnykh
- Nikita Lobintsev
- Vladimir Morozov
- Aleksandr Popkov
- Yaroslav Potapov
- Kirill Prigoda
- Evgeni Rilov
- Aleksandr Sadovnikov
- Andrey Shabasov
- Aleksandr Sukhorukov
- Grigoriy Tarasevich
- Vsevolod Zanko
- Aleksei Brianskii
- Ilya Druzhinin
- Semen Makovich
- Daniil Pakhomov
Russia bashing is a new Olympic sport it seems. American media have that gold medal in the bag.
Would love to see Vlad podium and can’t wait to read all the hate on here.
Gentlemen, you have to admit that WADA, IOC and respective federations tried really, really, really hard to ban as many Russians as possible. So, if Morozov and Lobintsev were cleared, maybe there was nothing on them after all.
There is an interesting article in The Australian (not a Kremlin media btw) I think it’s named something like “WADA drug case against Russians sexed up.” It says that both swimmers probes were marked as “S” e.g. safe, it’s WADA decided it might not be safe and banned them just in case.
Hey Braden can we change the pick em to include Morozov in his individual events? While I hate to do it I see him on the podium in the 100 free
I really hope Vlad is clean, some part of me actually wants to believe…
I think everyone that knows Vlad (including me) would say that he is not the kind of guy that does something like that, but I don’t know :-/
If Morozov is mentioned in the MacLaren report then he most certainly was not cleaned. See what MacLaren said:
With the Russians and the IOC essentially claiming that McLaren’s report only amounted to allegations, he reiterated that his findings were proved beyond reasonable doubt and revealed that he had supporting evidence stored in a secret location.
“I have the evidence, I have it secured. I have the evidence backed up by forensic analysis of databases, sample bottles, I have laboratory evidence of some of those samples. It’s true I haven’t revealed,” he said.
“But if you conduct a proper investigation, you don’t put the evidence out there to create misinformation. I was at the stage where I could say what… Read more »
Here’s what McLaren has to say about his own report:
“People have misconstrued what was in that report, particularly the IOC and international federations. I have not done the work to drill down and see which athletes may have been doping and what they had been using,” he said.
“That was something I didn’t have time to do and I made it very clear that was not part of the report. The report was about state-sponsored doping, manipulation of results, swapping of samples, preparation of wash-up schemes before London 2012. It’s a state-run system. That’s what in the report and people seem to have completely missed that.”
McLaren said there had been “considerable confusion and misinformation”. While information about some… Read more »
Here’s what MacLaren said:
With the Russians and the IOC essentially claiming that McLaren’s report only amounted to allegations, he reiterated that his findings were proved beyond reasonable doubt and revealed that he had supporting evidence stored in a secret location.
“I have the evidence, I have it secured. I have the evidence backed up by forensic analysis of databases, sample bottles, I have laboratory evidence of some of those samples. It’s true I haven’t revealed,” he said.
“But if you conduct a proper investigation, you don’t put the evidence out there to create misinformation. I was at the stage where I could say what I knew beyond reasonable doubt. I wouldn’t put anything in the report that I didn’t… Read more »
I hope Morozov and Lobintsev got booed loudly everytime they are on the starting block.
I doubt that either of them breaks 48.2
Any podium they make will be suspect. Just say’in. The IOC is a corrupt organization that will be the “downfall” of future Olympics.
Looks like Efimova is going after all. Her agent posted so.