RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – The Latest on the Rio Games (all times local to Rio de Janeiro):
3:40 p.m.
The split between Olympic leaders and global anti-doping officials over the Russian doping scandal continues to escalate.
The World Anti-Doping Agency fired back on Monday, a day after IOC President Thomas Bach suggested the agency was to blame for the last-minute chaos over the participation of Russian athletes in the Rio de Janeiro Games.
Bach said the agency should have acted sooner on evidence of state-sponsored doping rather than release the damning report by Canadian investigator Richard McLaren so close to the games, which open on Friday.
“While it is destabilizing in the lead-up to the games, it is obvious, given the seriousness of the revelations that he (McLaren) uncovered, that they had to be published and acted upon without delay,” WADA President Craig Reedie, who is also an IOC vice president, said in a statement Monday.
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1:55 p.m.
Russia’s sports minister says a decision is expected in the next two days on which athletes will be allowed to compete in Rio de Janeiro.
Vitaly Mutko spoke during a visit to Paris-based UNESCO on Monday where he presented a report on what is being done in Russia to fight doping – after the World Anti-Doping Agency accused the Russian government of directing a vast cover-up.
Mutko insists “there is no state system of doping in Russia.”
The IOC won’t allow Russians to compete in Rio if they had previously been banned for doping, were implicated in the alleged cover-up or had not been tested often enough internationally.
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1:45 p.m.
The head of World Sailing is promising a launching ramp that collapsed a few days ago will be ready on Friday – three days before the sailing competition starts at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
The launching ramp, one of two being used at the Marina da Gloria venue, broke apart on Saturday. Organizers are blaming strong waves and poor design.
Andy Hunt, the head of World Sailing, says “if it was absolutely necessary, we could still carry on competition, but it would just be logistically very difficult.”
Rio organizing committee spokesman Mario Andrada says the new ramp will be slightly smaller than the one that broke. He says “that ramp was maybe a bit too big.”
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1:25 p.m.
The United States will have a second member on the International Olympic Committee’s executive board.
Former Olympic ice hockey gold medalist Angela Ruggiero was elected as chair of the IOC’s athletes’ commission on Monday, a position which automatically gives her a seat on the policy-making board.
Ruggiero will replace Claudia Bokel, a former Olympic fencer from Germany whose four-year term is expiring at the end of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Ruggiero will join Anita DeFrantz on the 15-member board. Her elevation comes at a crucial time for the U.S., with Los Angeles bidding for the 2024 Olympics.
Los Angeles is competing against Paris, Rome and Budapest, Hungary. The IOC will select the host city in September 2017.
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12:45 p.m.
The chief spokesman for the Rio Olympics says, “I can guarantee in the name of Rio 2016 that the athletes can compete in safety.”
Mario Andrada was responding Monday to the publication of the latest water study by The Associated Press, which found severe viral contamination in all outdoor aquatic venues for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Some of the worst pollution is in Rio’s Guanabara Bay, which will host the sailing competition. Andrada says: “We could and should have done a little better. But it does not remain a threat to the athletes. The athletes will compete in safety.”
Rio dumps at least half of its untreated sewage into the water surrounding the city, soiling many of its world-famous beaches.