If it is eligible for the Rio Olympics, Russia’s track and field federation (ARAF) said Tuesday it will not send any athletes convicted of doping in previous years to the Games.
The move was made as Russia’s track and field federation hopes to be reinstated to international competition on June 17 after it was suspended indefinitely in November for doping violations.
“The ARAF presidium has introduced amendments to the criteria of selecting athletes who will go to the Olympics,” a statement read Tuesday, according to a Russian news agency TASS translation. “The list of requirements now contains a special clause saying that any potential participant in the Olympics who proved to have used doping in the previous years cannot be a member of the Russian national team. The ARAF made this harsh decision for the sole purpose of doing its utmost to let clean athletes participate in the Olympics.”
The statement came after Russia media reported 11 Russian track and field athletes from the 2008 Beijing Games, including eight medalists, are among 31 athletes from 12 nations across six sports whose 2008 doping samples retested recently came up positive.
London Olympic high jump champion Anna Chicherova is on that list of 11 athletes.
Another notable Russian, 2011 World heptathlon champion Tatyana Chernova, served a doping ban from 2013 to 2015 due to a failed drug test from a 2013 retest of a 2009 sample.
Chernova earned heptathlon bronze at the last two Olympics and was a top rival to British Olympic champion Jessica Ennis-Hill.