The governing body of world rowing (FISA) announced on Tuesday (26th July) that 22 of Russia's 28 rowers entered for the Olympics would not be allowed to take part.

"The non-eligibility (of Russian rowers) came into play after the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) decision when, as you know, on 24th July, they released a statement outlining the conditions of eligibility for Russian athletes to take part in the Olympic Games. That is to say, an athlete who has been sanctioned for doping, even if they have already served their sanction, will not be able to take part in the Olympic Games. This is the case for two of our athletes, for two of our Russian rowers (Anastasia Karabelshchikova and Ivan Podshivalov). As far as the third athlete is concerned, another condition laid down by the IOC is that all athletes implicated in the McLaren report (published last week and commissioned by WADA, the report accused Russia of state-sponsored doping), also cannot take part in the Rio Games. We have one athlete from the men's eight, Ivan Balandin, who has been implicated in the McLaren report - not in the report itself but in the information we requested following the report. Where rowing was cited, we found (undesirable) elements with ten other rowers. Balandin is the only rower from the Russian delegation registered for the Olympic Games who was in this report."