Wrestling's Special Commission Completes Review of Russian Wrestlers, Sends Recommendations

CORSIER-SUR-VEVEY (July 28) -- United World Wrestling's Special Commission has concluded its review of Russian wrestlers qualified for the 2016 Olympic Games and has sent its recommendations to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The review process included a consideration of the McLaren Report, doping-tests results [1] administered by various international doping agencies and a review of any previous bans on Russian qualified wrestlers.

The Special Commission has concluded:

     • All Russian wrestlers currently qualified for Rio 2016 have all been tested in 2016 by WADA-accredited laboratories outside of Moscow

     • None of the wrestlers entered in the Olympic Games -- or who qualified a place for their NOC -- was included in the McLaren report.

     • 16 of the 17 Russian wrestlers entered to compete at the Olympic Games are cleared to be considered for acceptance by the IOC/CAS.

     • Per regulations set by the IOC, Viktor Lebedev (Freestyle, 57kg) was not cleared for consideration due to a positive doping test at the 2006 Junior World Championships.

     • Mr. Lebedev's qualification spot has been replaced by the nation of the next best-ranked wrestler from his qualification tournament (2015 World Championships). That nation is Belarus (BLR).

In addition, the Commission recommends:

     • The IOC tests the entire Russian Wrestling team in Rio before the start of the Olympic Wrestling competition.

     • Should any change be made to the entry list previously submitted by the Russian team, both the replaced and new entry must be tested; if either test is positive, the qualified spot is lost.

The Special Commission elected to extend its work beyond wrestlers entered to compete in Rio 2016, and has also reviewed the testing history of wrestlers who qualified Russia's Olympic place but were not the final selection in their specific weight category. Each of these wrestlers was cleared of anti-doping violations, were not included in the McLaren report and had been tested by foreign WADA-accredited labs.

Finally, the Special Commission has reviewed the list of 28 wrestlers mentioned in the McLaren report. From this review, it appeared that 17 of 28 doping cases had already been managed and a decision rendered in accordance with the World Anti-doping Code; 16 of 28 hold a UWW international licence; 7 cases concern Pankration athletes (a non-Olympic folk style of wrestling). Three cases were deemed suspicious by the commission and full investigation by UWW will be started in relation to these cases.

List of Names Being Submitted for Review by IOC/CAS:

Greco-Roman

59kg Stepan MARYANYAN
66kg Islam-Beka ALBIEV
75kg Roman VLASOV
85kg Davit CHAKVETADZE
98kg Islam MAGOMEDOV
130kg Sergey SEMENOV

Freestyle

65kg Soslan RAMONOV
74kg Aniuar GEDUEV
86kg Abdulrashid SADULAEV
97kg Anzor BOLTUKAEV
125kg Bilyal MAKHOV

Women's Wrestling

48kg Milana DADASHEVA
58kg Valeriia KOBLOVA ZHOLOBOVA
63kg Inna TRAZHUKOVA
69kg Natalia VOROBEVA
75kg Ekaterina BUKINA
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[1] This includes a full review of all wrestlers' steroid passports by the WADA accredited laboratory of Paris on 28 July. The conclusion of this review was that all passport had normal values.