PR 64 - FINA STATEMENT – Participation of Russia at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games

FINA acknowledges and supports the IOC’s position in respect of the participation of clean Russian athletes to the Olympic Games in Rio.

The WADA Independent Person (“McLaren”) report has shown that anti-doping rules, i.e. the FINA Doping Control (DC) Rules and the WADA Code were not correctly implemented in Russia, i.e. within the jurisdiction of the Russian Swimming Federation.

The exact implication for the Russian Swimming Federation is still to be clarified. For this purpose, the matter has been forwarded to an ad hoc commission, which will have to investigate. The Commission will notably have to consider any further information to be received from the continuing IP investigation.

In the meantime, the IP report already clearly establishes that the anti-doping rules were not properly applied and notably that a number of samples collected from swimmers were not correctly reported in accordance with FINA DC Rules.

In this context and as a decision made as an emergency in the context of Rio 2016, and in application of art. C 17.14.8, to protect the integrity of sport and the clean athletes, the FINA Bureau has decided that it will subject the eligibility of Russian athletes to specific additional criteria, such criteria being consistent with the IOC’s requirements published on July 24, 2016:

•    First, no athlete corresponding to the samples mentioned in the IP Report will be declared eligible.

•    Secondly, every Russian athlete’s entry will be analysed in respect of doping tests conducted either by FINA and/or other NADOs and not analysed in Russia. The FINA Doping Control Review Board will conduct a review and issue a recommendation in respect to whether Russian athletes were subject to a reliable anti-doping scrutiny, for a decision to be made by the FINA Executive.

•    FINA has noted the requirement that the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) shall not enter any athlete having been already sanctioned. Accordingly, no such athlete will be declared eligible.

The above measure applies to the Russian Swimming Federation. As an immediate effect of the above mentioned criteria, seven swimmers are not eligible to compete at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games:

Athletes withdrawn by the ROC:

-    Mikhail Dovgalyuk
-    Yulia Efimova
-    Natalia Lovtcova
-    Anastasia Krapivina (Marathon Swimming)

Athletes appearing in the WADA IP Report:

-    Nikita Lobintsev
-    Vladimir Morozov
-    Daria Ustinova

There is no indication in the IP report that athletes of Russian Synchronised Swimming Federation, Russian Diving Federation and Russian Water Polo would be implicated (1).

Finally, after the publication of the WADA IP Report, FINA has decided to re-test all the samples of Russian athletes collected at the Kazan 2015 FINA World Championships. After the conclusion of this competition, these samples were transferred and are now stored at the WADA-accredited laboratory of Barcelona (ESP).

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(1) After check, the single case mentioned in the IP report in respect of Water Polo was a case effectively reported and the male athlete was sanctioned. Russia’s Men Water Polo Team is not qualified for Rio.