The Court for Arbitration in Sports (CAS) has pronounced its verdict.

The IAAF-imposed ban on the Russian Athletics Federation stays.

No Russian track-and-field athlete will be competing in Rio—at least, not under their national flag.

The International Olympic Committee will decide the fate of the Russian contingent when it meets today.

The CAS judgment is non-binding on the Committee.

WADA and most western nations’ Olympic Committees are in favour of a blanket ban on the rogue nation given clear and damning evidence of state-sponsored collusion in doping.

National Olympic Committees have been banned before—simply not for doping.

Collective responsibility should not come at the expense of individual justice—the IOC is seeking a balance.

The Russian public believes that their country is being discriminated against by the Western world. They cannot accept that all their Athletes are tainted.

A sanction against all Russian competitors would be unfair to those untainted by cheating allegations.

While the IOC has several options before arriving at a final decision, a simple solution would be to allow the Russians to participate—both under their national banner and the Olympic one but have every single one of their athletes subjected to in-competition testing.

This would allow clean athletes to breathe freely and hopefully deter sportspersons who are doping.

This would also send a strong message to national sports federations everywhere that unless they clean up their act, their athletes and their fellow countrymen will be treated like Caesar’s wife—not above suspicion.

Simply leaving the decision to international sports federations burdens them further and not all of them are fully equipped to make an informed decision on the matter.

Whatever the IOC’s decision, there will be no pleasing everyone.

That’s a given.

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• IOC Affirms Russian Track Ban(wsj.com)

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Filed under: Asides, News, Olympics, sports, Stories Tagged: 2016 Summer Olympics, CAS, Court for Arbitration in Sports, court of arbitration for sport, international association of athletics federations, international olympic committee, IOC, olympic games, Olympics, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Olympics, Russian Olympic Committee, Track and field