TASS reports Russians allowed by BWF

Russian news agency TASS reported yesterday that the Badminton World Federation (BWF) had allowed Russia’s four qualified badminton players to compete in the Rio Olympics.

On Monday, the IOC made public its decision to devolve onto the international federations for each Olympic sport the decision on whether to include Russian athletes (see related article here).  What the TASS report refers to specifically is a letter that the National Badminton Federation of Russia said they had received from BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund, confirming that the Russian players would be included in the draws for the badminton events, as indeed they were yesterday.

However, the report goes on to say that the “WBF [sic] is waiting for the final confirmation from the IOC special commission”.  This is presumably a reference to two conditions established in the IOC decision that do not simply leave the decision up to the BWF’s discretion.  One is that any player accepted by the IOC “will be subject to a rigorous additional out-of-competition testing programme” and the other is that the BWF decision be “upheld by an expert from the CAS [Court of Arbitration for Sport] list of arbitrators”.

The four Russian players who qualified for the Rio Olympics are All England men’s doubles champions Vladimir Ivanov / Ivan Sozonov, along with Natalia Perminova (pictured) in women’s singles and Vladimir Malkov in men’s singles.

Click here to read the complete TASS article