Swimming governing body FINA has announced that seven Russian swimmers have been ruled ineligible to compete at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro next month due to doping violations.
The International Olympic Committee opted against implementing a blanket ban on the Russian Federation, instead leaving it up to each sport's individual governing bodies.
FINA has confirmed that four swimmers, including reigning world 100m breaststroke champion Yulia Efimova, Natalia Lovtcova, Mikhail Dovgalyuk and Anastasia Krapivina, are ineligible due to previous doping offences.
Richard McLaren's recent report alleging a state-sponsored doping programme in Russia from 2011 to 2015 named two-time Olympic medallist Nikita Lobintsev, Vladimir Morozov and Daria Ustinova - all of whom have been banned for Rio as a result.
A statement from FINA read: "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."
Meanwhile, FINA has confirmed that it will re-test all samples from the Russian swimmers that competed at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan.
Danielle Joynson
