Just
24 hours after the International Olympic Committee was told it should
consider banning Russian athletes from the Rio Games, the tournament's
governing body said it would be "exploring legal options" over such a move.
Russia came fourth in the medal table at
the 2012 Games and the absence of the nation's athletes at Rio would
hark back to the Cold War era when the U.S.
boycotted the Moscow
Olympics in 1980 and the then Soviet Union snubbed the Los Angeles Games
four years later.
A ban is being
considered after Russia was accused Monday of "a shocking and
unprecedented attack on the integrity of sport and on the Olympic Games"
following an independent World Anti-Doping Agency commissioned report.
IOC president Thomas Bach
said in a statement that his organization "will not hesitate to take the
toughest sanctions available against any individual or organization
implicated."
The
Russian track and field team has already been banned -- but that
decision is contested at the Court of Arbitration for Sport with a
decision likely to be announced by the end of the week.
And with just 17 days until the Games get underway in Rio, the IOC doesn't have time on its side.