© Grigoriy Sisoev / Sputnik
"The integrity of the weightlifting sport has been seriously damaged on multiple times and levels by the Russians, therefore an appropriate sanction was applied in order to preserve the status of the sport," said a statement published on the IWF website.
Weightlifting is a sport historically associated with doping offenses, and Russia's athletes have been some of the most heavily implicated in the recently-published McLaren Report sponsored by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which allegedly exposed state-sponsored cheating.
"8 athletes were nominated by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) to compete in the Rio Olympic Games weightlifting events. Ms. Tatiana Kashirina's and Ms. Anastasiia Romanova's nominations were withdrawn by the ROC due to prior anti-doping rule violations," wrote the IWF.
"Four additional athletes were listed in the McLaren Report as beneficiaries of the Disappearing Positive Methodology System,"added the statement, referring to an alleged system in which tainted samples from athletes were replaced with clean ones by officials in exchange for money, or in order to earn Russia international prestige from better performances.
Comment: So 4 other athletes were banned even though they've not tested positive for banned substances, rather they were named in the ridiculous McLaren report. It should be rather simple, either an athlete tests positive and is not allowed to compete, or there is actual evidence that they cheated the doping system. Without any evidence, there is no basis for banning them from participating. It's merely another example of America's cultural war against Russia.
With six out of the eight members of the team accused of past or present violations, the IWF referred to last week's ruling by the International Olympic Committee, which left it to individual federations to decide whether Russia's teams can participate in the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, noting that "Russian athletes in any of the 28 Olympic summer sports have to assume the consequences of what amounts to a collective responsibility in order to protect the credibility of the Olympic competitions."
The IWF also pointed out that 7 samples submitted by Russian athletes for the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and those in London in 2012 have now been re-tested as positive, in what the federation called a "shocking and disappointing" statistic.
"The [Russian Weightlifting] Federation will do everything in its power to rehabilitate us, but it is impossible to do it before the Olympics; there is no time to do anything," Russian weightlifter Aleksey Lovchev told RT, commenting on the IWF decision.
This is utter bullshit!