Rio 2016: Russia expect ban decision to be made on Sunday as athletes await IAAF supsension appeal fate

The IOC have announced that they will make a decision within a week but Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov believes it will be made at the weekend

Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov (Getty)

Russia's hopes of fielding a full team at next month's Rio Olympics should be settled on Sunday, according to Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov.

That is when the International Olympic Committee's executive board is holding a second emergency meeting to discuss the fallout from Richard McLaren's explosive report into Russian doping.

McLaren, a Canadian law professor who was asked by the World Anti-Doping Agency to investigate claims of state-directed cheating in Russia, uncovered evidence that hundreds of positive drugs tests had been covered up between 2011-15.

That prompted WADA and many others to ask the IOC and International Paralympic Committee to keep Russia away from Rio but on Tuesday the IOC board said it needed more time to consider its "legal options".

The Lausanne-based organisation has since said it would make a final decision by next Wednesday but Zhukov told Russian state TV it would be "finally resolved by the end of this week, probably on Sunday".

In the meantime, the Court of Arbitration for Sport will deliver its verdict on Thursday on Russia's appeal against the ban imposed on its athletics team by the International Association of Athletics Federations.

That sanction was imposed in November after an earlier WADA-funded investigation and upheld last month, following a unanimous vote by the IAAF's council that Russia had not done enough to earn reinstatement.

McLaren's investigation has revealed that almost all Olympic and Paralympic sports in the world's largest country have been part of a doping conspiracy "directed, controlled and overseen" by the Russian sports ministry.

On Wednesday, the World Rowing Federation (FISA) said it too was consulting "external, independent legal counsel" to work out what "legally sustainable" actions it could take if the report's claims that at least 11 positive tests from rowers were hidden by the Moscow anti-doping laboratory.

FISA has already disqualified Russia's entry in the men's quadruple sculls from Rio because of a doping violation in May but the sporting superpower still has five crews qualified for the Olympics and two for the Paralympics.

In a teleconference on Tuesday evening, FISA's executive committee also agreed to review all testing of Russian rowers since 2011 and has asked the IOC for guidance on the possible reallocation of Rio slots to other nations, as the July 18 deadline has passed.

And as a final measure, FISA offered to facilitate a meeting of all the Summer Games' sports federations on Thursday morning.

Athletics and rowing are not the only sports that have forged ahead with responses to the doping crisis, weightlifting is also on the verge of confirming that Russia's team will be banned from Rio, along with Belarus, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan.

Zhukov, however, said he was optimistic of winning the appeal at CAS against the IAAF ban, which he believed would set a precedent.

And with Russia desperately trying to turn the debate away from collective punishment towards individual bans, Zhukov is still hoping to watch the 387 athletes selected for the Olympics march into Rio's opening ceremony on August 5.

PA