The Russian ministry has appealed the International Association of Athletics Federations ruling Friday banning its 52 track and field athletes from competing at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics next month.
Russian officials said they have asked the International Olympic Committee to “consider the impact that our athletes’ exclusion will have on the dreams and the people of Russia,” according to a report by CBS News.
Russian track & field athletes may be banned from competing in Rio. @HollyMAWilliams on IAAF doping investigation pic.twitter.com/19yuAJlT3r
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) June 17, 2016
The International Olympic Committee is scheduled to meet next Tuesday where they could decide to allow individuals on the team who were not caught doping to participate in the games.
The Friday announcement was the first time a country has been excluded from the world games because of doping.
In November, The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) published a 350-page report that had called for Russia to be banned after a commissioned investigation uncovered rampant doping among athletes and a cover-up of the abuses by national authorities.
It alleged there were also individuals pretending to be engineers at the Sochi drug-testing lab who were actually from the federal security service, FSB. According to the report, 1,147 doping control samples were ordered destroyed days before a WADA audit by Moscow Testing Laboratory Director Grigory Rodchenkov.
