RIO Olympics, 2016: The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has decided to ban the Russian national team from competing at the upcoming Rio Olympics over doping offences, the sport’s governing federation said on Friday.

The IWF said some of the Russian competitors had been named in a report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency which exposed evidence of state-backed cheating in Russia.

Weightlifting has become the first sport to impose an outright ban on Russian competitors in Rio.

In a statement, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) said that 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”.

They also expressed their wish to highlight the “extremely shocking and disappointing statistics” regarding Russian weightlifters.

The IWF statement added:  “The Russian Weightlifting Federation will be barred from recommending, entering or participating with athletes and Technical Officials.”

This decision, made by the IWF Executive Board following a meeting today, follows analysis of the McLaren Report as well as the advice of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and re-analysis of Beijing 2008 and London 2012 samples.

US anti-doping boss Travis Tygart accused the IOC of deterring future whistleblowers and of refusing to take decisive leadership and blasted their non-decision as “a significant blow to the rights of clean athletes’’.

IOC President Thomas Bach countered that collective responsibility had to be balanced against the rights of clean athletes.

Chaos now reigns with individual sports facing a seemingly impossible race against time to determine which Russians are “demonstrably clean”.

The Games begin next Friday.