Sir Chris Hoy and Emma Pooley condemn IOC decision on Russia

I smell more than a whiff of hypocrisy.

If the IOC imposed a blanket ban on the Russians, they'd promptly be sued into oblivion for "restraint of trade" quite apart from "collective punishment" not flying too well in a court either.

I seriously doubt that Russian golfers are busy getting shot full of
performance enhancing drugs by their government in order to compete in the
Olympics.

The IOC know that they would have to prove in court that 100% of Russian Olympic competitors are cheats to support a blanket ban. Good luck with that.

The fact is that nowadays there is so much money sloshing around in
professional sport (and the gambling on it), that it's hardly surprising that
it's so crooked.

The muppets in charge and the sportsmen involved are always bleating about how they are going to clean it up and how much progress they've made.

It's self-serving nonsense, of course. The wide availability of drugs
(performance enhancing or otherwise) on the 'net, makes their feeble efforts
doomed to fail.

Think we're at the crux of the problem now.

We'd have a situation where innocent athletes would get caught in a ban, and dopers from other countries will go on and compete and win medals.

And everyone will go ahead and pat themselves on the back for a job well done because they got rid of the big bad Russians. Worse, people will actually be watching their TV cheering dopers on in the same breath.

Farcical.

When you consider the appalling state of out-of-competition testing in star countries like Nigeria and Jamaica, not to mention how far most sports governing bodies lag begind cycling in their testing regimes, (some only just introducing bio passports, and in 2011 the tennis federation didn't test the Williams sisters once out of competition in 2011 apparently!), it seems unfair to impose automatic bans against one country in particular.

That said, the evidence of state supported doping in Russia is so damning that surely it's an opportunity for IOC to show they're serious about punishing doping. Leaving it up to the (willfully inept or negligent) individual sport governing bodies shows weakness rather than leadership on this issue.

Increased in-competition testing will only do so much - in the case of many of these dodgy athletes (not just the Russians), the damage has been done already by training on the juice for the last 4 years.

It is said that the women's 1500m final in London 2012 is possibly the dirtiest final in history, dirtier perhaps even that Seoul '88 mens 100m(!), due to the subsequent doping revelations.

With all that in mind, I'm not sure I'll be able to believe any of the athletes competing in this year's games, Russian or otherwise.

Yes there are problems in other countries which will no doubt include ourselves and in my opinion more should be done about that and i agree to much has been swept under the carpet but this is systematic government run cheating on a scale never seen before. It's not a few coaches who feed their athletes banned substances it's coaches, athletes, drug testing centres and the government wilfully and knowingly cheating.
Coe & IAAF probably did know some of it as will other groups such as FIFA and they are just as culpable in my eyes.

There has to be a point when enough is enough and if it takes a very hard line / sentence then so be it.
We see on here multiple posts calling for lifetime bans for drug cheats in cycling and people like Miller getting called worse than shite, not enough testing in other sports etc etc yet when they do come down hard it's poo poo'd.

Personally I think there should be a blanket ban. It's been proven that it wasn't just coaches plying the drug it was the national government who supported this. Thousands of tests have gone missing or blood not even tested.
You simply can't just ignore it and only blame those already caught. As said many times on this forum a sports person should know exactly what they are putting into their body.

Russia, like Armstrong is the whipping boy for the corrupt governing bodies that are trying to cover up their previous knowledge of cheating EVERYWHERE in sport. I don't believe for a moment people like Coe didn't have any idea of what goes on.  Like happened during the Armstrong era, it wasn't in the governing body's interest to ban Armstrong until the carpet had been completely lifted.

Supermen/women sell. Give them that Coca Cola money.

Sorry, just can't agree with blanket bans. It's bigotry and in this climate it's political. We've had a hardon for Russia again since Crimea. 

If someone gets caught doping, ban them. Done.

You don't ban people who've worked since being a child on realising their dream to be told you can't compete because you're Russian.