FINA Denies Reports Lobintsev and Morozov Have Been Confirmed for Rio

FINA has published a press release that contradicts statements made by Russian sports lawyer Atyom Patsev to Russian state-run media TASS on Tuesday stating that FINA had confirmed the participation of Vladimir Morozovb and Nikita Lobintsev for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

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Despite other similar comments by Russian government officials that FINA would make a ruling on the matter outside of the guidance of the IOC that both athletes should be barred after being named in the McLaren IP report, FINA says that any further rulings on the two swimmers’ eligibility would be made by the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the IOC three-member ad hoc committee set up to decide on these matters.

Lobintsev and Morozov have both appealed their cases to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and were the first to officially do so at the court set up in Rio de Janeiro.

Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova, who was also pulled from the Olympics for other doping-related offenses, has also appealed to the CAS.

The full FINA press release is below:

Contrary to recent media reports, the eligibility of Russian swimmers Vladimir Morozov and Nikita Lobintsev to compete at the Olympic Games Rio 2016 has not been confirmed, and will not be confirmed until the IOC’s three-person commission to review Russian entrants renders its final decision on these athletes, along with the other members of the Russian swimming team.

The FINA Bureau initially did not include Morozov and Lobintsev on the list of eligible competitors, in respect of the IOC’s ruling that nobody implicated in the WADA IP Report may be accredited for entry in the Olympic Games. Both athletes were named in the WADA IP Report.

The two athletes filled an appeal to CAS and FINA understands that this Court has forwarded the case to the IOC three-person commission for final decision.

FINA would like to make it absolutely clear that the International Federation is totally opposed to doping of any form in sport. FINA’s commitment to anti-doping is underlined by the 2,177 unannounced out-of-competition tests it has conducted on Olympic Games-bound athletes between January and the end of July 2016. The total investment for all anti-doping tests conducted during this period amounts to approximately USD 1,800,000.

FINA also took the decision to retest all Russian samples from athletes going to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games that were collected at the latest 15th FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia, 2015. These samples, retested at the Barcelona laboratory, where they have been stored, returned no adverse findings.