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LAUSANNE. — Russia will be allowed to compete at next month’s Rio Olympics after the event’s governing body made the shock decision not to issue a blanket ban on Russian competitors. The shock decision – made after a meeting of the IOC’s executive board on yesterday — comes despite Richard McLaren’s sensational, damning report into their state-sponsored doping programme. The IOC announced that Russian athletes will be able to take part in the Games should they fulfil a strict set of criteria, while no one who has been sanctioned for any doping offences in the past will be allowed to compete.

The outcome of the executive board’s deliberations comes as a surprise following the results of McLaren’s investigation, which painted a picture of widespread doping by Russians across a range of sports, including at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The IOC labelled the findings ‘a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sports and on the Olympics’ earlier this week, and it was expected that the entire Russian team — from across all 28 sports involved in the summer spectacle — would be prevented from competing. However, the governing body stressed their desire to ‘protect clean athletes and the integrity of sport’ as they left the door ajar for Russia to feature prominently at the Games, which are due to run from August 5 until August 21. — AFP.