IOC Rejects Blanket Ban

"We had to balance the collective responsibility and the individual justice to which every human being and every athlete is entitled to," said Thomas Bach. Even as a new investigation is launching [that will definitely affect the upcoming winter Olympics], the IOC said the McLaren report made no direct accusations against the Russian Olympic Committee as an institution. “An athlete should not suffer and should not be sanctioned for a system in which he was not implicated,” Bach told reporters. The IOC 
has laid out their stipulations to determine which Russians will be admitted into the Olympic village. As of 7/24/16 they're all provisionally suspended (that is, not accredited) until they meet the following requirements:

First, no one can have a record of doping or been sanctioned in the past. Even if an individual served his/her sentence, that person will be denied. This does ban a number of athletes in Russia, but it does not affect Kolya since he was found "not guilty" of doping in May, and thus was never sanctioned. 

Secondly, the International Federation that governs each sport will have to analyze the background and testing history of each athlete, and they can only analyze tests that were done in foreign labs since the IOC doesn't trust RUSADA's now uncredited lab. They must release proof of Russia's clean background, using the guidelines of the WADA Code and additional, more stringent, principles agreed upon by the Olympic summit. For our gymnasts, this means the FIG will have to show evidence that Russian athletes have always tested negative at international competitions (the entire quad) and show that they were tested recently at international competitions with negative results. This might be a little tricky because word is not everyone on the team was tested at 2016 Euros (which seems crazy to believe). For instance, after TF and EF's only Aliya was tested! Hopefully, the rest of the Olympic teammates were tested before qualifications or something. Luckily, Russia did send people to a few World Cups and Challenge Cups this year, so the anti-doping procedures at those events should cover our team. 

The IOC says that absence of positive illegal substances does not mean Russian athletes aren't guilty of doping, they just might know of sneaky ways to mask the illegal substances.  Because of the lack of time to do an extensive review into the procedures Russia has used to foil anti-doping detection, the IOC says that Russian athletes in Rio will be subjected to  a "guilty until proven innocent" environment [both by officials and the watching public]. A section of the IOC statement below: 

The IOC mentioned at last week's hearing that newer technology was able to find lower traces of doping than what was traceable four and eight years ago in London and Beijing, and consequently athletes that thought they got away with cheating are now going to get punished. Around “80 percent” of the Russian team regularly undergoes international testing of the kind specified in the IOC criteria, Mutko said after the teleconference, although he still called the additional testing measures "very tough." Let's just pray our gymnasts are in that 80%, eh? 

After they pass these measures, the IOC will begin to formally accept athletes, but only if they meet with the approval of CAS arbitrators appointed by an ICAS member, independent from any sports organization involved in the Olympics. 

After they pass these tests, they will continue to be randomly and stringently tested during the Games and outside of competitions times. Any athletes who is not available to drop whatever it is they are doing and get tested right away will have their accreditation withdrawn. This last stipulation was put in because in 2013/14 when WADA activated a number of surprise visits to the Russian T&F team, coaches -who were used to knowing when they would come- tried to hide their athletes and tell the testers to come back at a later date. I can already foresee that our gymnasts are going to lose A LOT of training time over this! In one way, it's like the price they pay for going to the Games is to ensure that it is a miserable experience for them. And taking away so much training time and having visits at random hours might make it an unsuccessful one as well. 

I feel terrible for the clean athletes who will be in Rio, preparing under this suspicion of guilt. But today is a day to give thanks, because at least they will be there, and that was most important. 

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!