Russian weightlifters banned from Rio 2016

Russian weightlifters will not be permitted to compete at the Rio Olympics next month.

The sport's governing body, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), has determined that the doping scandal involving the country's athletes has "seriously damaged" weightlifting's integrity.

The IWF's call comes after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) opted against imposing a blanket ban on Russian athletes following revelations of state-sponsored doping made in the McLaren report, instead ruling that individual sports federations should make their own decisions.

Of the eight athletes put forward to represent Russia in Brazil, two had already been ruled out under the IOC's stipulations for previously breaking anti-doping regulations - Tatiana Kashirina, a silver medallist at London 2012, and Anastasiia Romanova - and a further four more were listed within the McLaren report.

An IWF statement said: "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."

Rio 2016 gets under way next week.