The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will make a final ruling this week on "selective" doping bans handed out to six Russian athletes, including four Olympic champions.
Winning gold medals will prove easier than winning back fan trust, admitted IAAF chief Sebastian Coe as he prepared to open the world indoor athletics championships on Thursday.
Here we encapsulate all the sporting action from last week in this stunning photo feature.
It would be "absurd" if Russian doping whistleblower Yulia Stepanova was allowed to compete at the Rio Olympics while clean Russian athletes are barred from the Games, R-Sport agency quoted Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko as saying on Monday.
Sensational media reports of widespread blood doping in world athletics has also pointed the finger of suspicion at Indian athletes, though experts in the country are not very clear about how it could have happened.
Russian star pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva said on Wednesday she plans to retire after the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, where she has her sights sets on a third Olympic gold.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) faces a challenge to tackle cheating in sport while it has an annual budget of less than the income of many top athletes, its president Craig Reedie said. Lack of money could equally prove a handicap for a proposed independent testing authority, said Reedie, who also expressed support for global athletics chief Sebastian Coe and said WADA was in a state of "peace not war" with Coe's troubled sport. "I could do with a lot more money," Reedie said in an interview with Newsweek published on Saturday. The Scot said governments decided their own contributions to WADA's budget, which were then matched by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). "The total is not nearly enough," he said. "WADA's total annual budget of $30 million a year is exceeded by many athletes around the world who make more than that themselves in one year."
Hima dropped out midway through her 400m heats on April 21 at the Asian Championships due to lower back spasm and she was later ruled out of the women's 4x400m relay and mixed 4x400m relay races.
Top seed Sameer, who won the Swiss Open earlier this year, had to dig deep into his reservoir to outwit compatriot Pratul Joshi 16-21, 26-24, 21-7 in 55 minutes. In another quarter-final, Gurusaidutt, a former Commonwealth Games bronze medallist, recovered from a game down to beat Malaysia's Lim Chi Wing 13-21, 22-20, 21-11 in 59 minutes.
Rediff.com recaptures these and other exciting sporting moments from the week gone by....
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Tuesday
Hima Das shattered the 400m national record for a second time in two days for a silver while Dutee Chand grabbed the second place in 100m dash on another good day for India's track and field athletes at the Asian Games.
"The future of athleticism depends on the athletes," Lewis told Reuters ahead of the inauguration of the NACAC athletics championships in Costa Rica. "At the end of the day, the sport is going to be as good as the athletes want.
He was not handed a provisional suspension as it was not mandatory under WADA rules.
IOC ethics committee looks into Rio payment claims
India was aiming for an Olympic qualification as the eight finalists get an automatic berth for next year's Tokyo Games.
Olympics-bound runner Sudha Singh, who created a national record in women's 3000m steeplechase at the IAAF Diamond League in Shanghai.
American-born Swede Armand "Mondo" Duplantis soared to another pole vault world record on Saturday as he easily cleared 6.18 metres at the World Athletics Glasgow Indoor Grand Prix in Glasgow. The 20-year-old, a world silver medallist, had set the previous mark last Saturday by clearing 6.17m in Torun, Poland. That eclipsed by 1 cm Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie's record set in February 2014 in Donetsk, Ukraine.
Former World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound believes world athletics chief Sebastian Coe is under mounting pressure to find a way for suspended Russian track and field athletes to compete at the Rio Olympics.
'The Centre should take the matter seriously and ensure creating an opportunity to Srabani Nanda and Amiya Mallick to participate in the Rio Olympics'
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Saturday
Jamaican 100 metres world record holder Asafa Powell is not the world's best sprinter, retired 200 and 400 record holder Michael Johnson said. That honour, he said, goes to American world champion Tyson Gay. "Asafa Powell is a great talent but he can never get it done. He's failed time after time at the championships."
She can't quite recollect the names of either the films or the actors but Ethiopia's World and Olympic 10,000m champion runner Almaz Ayana says Bollywood movies are her favourite indulgence whenever she gets some time to herself.
Double Olympic champion Caster Semenya could trade her running shoes for soccer boots as early as next year after the 28-year-old signed for South African women's club JVW FC.
'It is what athletes want and we believe this decision will give all athletes, technical officials and volunteers some respite and certainty in these unprecedented and uncertain times'
'Most of our elite athletes are in national camps so they are safer.' 'They don't have to go out to buy vegetables or groceries; they are not as exposed as we are.' 'Most of them work for government organisations, they get salaries and stipends.'
South African double amputee Oscar Pistorius will not be allowed to compete at this year's Beijing Olympics.
Indian women's 4 x 400m relay team has finally been included in the list of Beijing Olympics qualifiers after the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) rectified its "mistake", Athletics Federation of India said on Wednesday. India were earlier excluded from IAAF's list of top 16 teams, who will contest in Beijing, as it had not considered Asian Grand Prix series held on June 23, 26 and 30 as Olympic qualifying events.
The ongoing World Athletics Championships at Moscow is action-packed. Rediff.com gives you a ringside view of the sporting spectacle.
The ban on Russia's track and field athletes from the Rio Games will scare drug cheats and help cleaning up the sport, Jamaica's six-time Olympic gold medallist Usain Bolt said.
India's star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra comfortably won the gold at the Sotteville Athletics meet in France, beating a competitive field which included 2012 London Olympics gold-medallist Keshorn Walcott.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday
P V Sindhu won the ESPN's 'Female Sportsperson of the Year' award while young shooter Saurabh Chaudhary bagged the honour in the male category.
This year Olympic Games could feature an athletics programme without two of the sport's most powerful nations -- Russia and Kenya -- while a third, Ethiopia, is under immense pressure to show it has adequate anti-doping measures.
Bolt getting jiggy, Bell being castled and some other exciting action from last week encapsulated by Rediff.com!
Ethiopia's Genzebe Dibaba ran the fastest ever women's 2,000 metres at the indoor Miting Internacional de Catalunya meeting in Sabadell, Spain on Tuesday.
Japan's top government spokesman said on Thursday that Tokyo's campaign to host the 2020 Olympics had been clean.
In the history of sport, you were forced to ponder, had there ever been a champion more universally unloved than Gatlin, the twice doping offender who by winning world 100 metres gold on Saturday had ruined one of sport's great fairytale farewells.
Jamaica won the showcase 4x200 metres relay without Usain Bolt as their American rivals dropped the baton at the IAAF World Relays in Nassau, Bahamas on Sunday.
Eight track and field finals, including the women's 10,000 metres and men's triple jump, will be held during morning sessions at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the International Association of Athletics Federation said on Monday.
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