THE International Olympic Committee said a three-person panel will have the final say on which Russian athletes can compete at the Rio Games.
It was only last week that the IOC said individual federations of the various sports should decide if Russian competitors are clean amidst allegations of State-sponsored doping.
But BBC Sport reported that the IOC now says the newly convened panel “will decide on whether to accept or reject the final proposal”
More than 250 Russian athletes have so far been cleared to compete.
The three-person panel is made up of Ugur Erdener, president of World Archery and head of the IOC medical and scientific commission, Claudia Bokel of the IOC athletes commission, and Spanish IOC member Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., son of the ex-IOC president of the same name.
The World Anti-Doping Agency had recommended all Russian athletes be banned after its independently commissioned report found evidence of a four-year “doping programme” across the “vast majority” of Olympic sports.
The IOC stopped short of applying a blanket ban in a move criticized by Wada and others, while swimmers Vladimir Morozov and Nikita Lobintsev have become the first Russian athletes to appeal against their ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The Olympics Games starts in Rio on Friday.
