his position that it would be wrong to collectively sanction all Ru

Essendons best-and-fairest ceremony passed with no word on skipper Jobe Watsons AFL playing future.The 31-year-old and the 11 other players serving doping suspensions werent present at the Crown Casino event on Wednesday night where Zach Merrett was the runaway Crichton Medal winner.Watson is yet to inform the club if he intends to play on next year or retire after sitting out the 2016 season.With time running out before important list management decisions are required, there was speculation the Bombers may use the season-ending club celebration to make an announcement on Watsons future.Instead, he wasnt mentioned in speeches by coach John Worsfold - who noted all the players who had re-committed to the club - and chairman Lindsay Tanner and was only referred to him in passing throughout the evening.Watson and Tayte Pears are the only banned players yet to confirm their intentions for next season.Worsfold evoked the memory of boxing legend Muhammad Ali in his address, urging the Bombers to put their dismal season behind them.Ravaged by the loss of the 12 players to doping suspensions, Essendon managed just three wins to claim the wooden spoon.In 2016, the world lost Muhammad Ali, a man with an incomparable work ethic and a fearlessness for standing up for his beliefs, Worsfold said.A man who was arrested, stripped of his titles and exiled from his sport for three years - three of his prime years - but then he took part in what was billed as the Fight of the Century with Joe Frazier and he lost.But then he made a comeback and is recognised as one of the greatest athletes of all time.Barack Obama said of Muhammad Ali: hes a man who believes real success comes when we rise after we fall.Though not identical, theres some lessons we can learn there.Tanner told the gathering he was proud of the unity shown and progress made in the long recovery process after the Court of Arbitration for Sports January decision to uphold the doping bans stemming from the 2012 supplements program.We havent turned on each other, Tanner said.We havent been distracted by the temptation to publicly re-fight the CAS decision - outrageous though it may have been.The banned players are allowed to return to the club in September and are awaiting the verdict of their appeal to a Swiss court.Merrett, 20, finished 105 votes ahead of joint runners-up Joe Daniher and James Kelly and also won the best club man and best defensive player awards. 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RIO DE JANEIRO -- IOC president Thomas Bach defended the decision not to ban Russias entire team from the Rio Games, declaring Sunday that the doping crisis wont damage the Olympic bodys credibility and taking a swipe at global anti-doping officials for failing to act sooner against state-sponsored cheating in Russia.Speaking at a news conference five days before the opening of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Bach said a total ban on Russia for systematic doping would not be justifiable on either moral or legal grounds.Every human being is entitled to certain rights of natural justice, said Bach, who also denied suggestions he had bowed to pressure from the Russian government to reject calls by anti-doping authorities for a complete ban.Bach was peppered with questions about the International Olympic Committees handling of the Russian scandal, including the decision to give international sports federations the authority to decide which Russian athletes should be cleared to compete in Rio.Asked whether the ruling represented a failure by the IOC, Bach said: No. This is for very obvious reasons.Bach said the IOC had set a very high bar by imposing strict conditions on the entry of Russians, including a ban on any athletes with prior doping sanctions.More than 100 Russian athletes -- including the track and field team -- have been excluded, with more than 250 declared eligible by the international sports federations.With the Games opening Friday, it remains uncertain exactly how many Russians will be competing. Some have filed appeals against their bans.I dont think that this in the end will be damaging because people will realize we have to take this decision now, Bach said. Imagine if we had not taken a decision, what limbo we would be in then.The IOC on Saturday set up a review panel consisting of three executive board members who will have the final say on which Russians are let into the Games, based on advice from an independent expert appointed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.Pressure for a complete ban followed a World Anti-Doping Agency report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren that accused Russias sports ministry of overseeing a vast doping conspiracy involving the countrys summer and winter sports athletes.Despite the backlash against the IOC decision, Bach said the committee had broad support across the Olympic movement, including from national Olympic committees and sports federations.Of course the negative opinions are most likely to be quoted, he said.Bach took a shot at WADA, which was set up by the IOC in 1999, for not having acted earlier on whiistleblower evidence of widespread doping in Russia.dddddddddddd He also questioned why WADA had accredited the Moscow and Sochi doping labs at the center of the scandal.The IOC is not responsible for the timing of the McLaren report, Bach said. The IOC is not responsible for the fact that different information which was offered to WADA already a couple of years ago was not followed up. The IOC is not responsible for the accreditation or supervision of anti-doping laboratories.Therefore, the IOC cannot be made responsible, neither for the timing nor for the reasons of these incidents we have to face now ... just a couple of days before the Olympic Games.Bach said the IOC wants to shed full light on all the allegations in McLarens report, including evidence that Russian officials replaced tainted urine samples with clean ones during the 2104 Winter Games in Sochi.McLarens investigation has been extended so he can identify athletes and others involved in state-backed doping and cover-ups. Once McLaren finishes his work, then we will take all the further necessary sanctions, Bach said.The evidence published so far by McLaren was shocking, Bach said.If this system was applied like this, its an attack on everything we want to represent, he said. Its an attack on the Olympic Games and its an attack on our values.But Bach reiterated his position that it would be wrong to collectively sanction all Russian athletes because it would punish some who had no links to doping.How far can you go to punish an individual for the failures or manipulations of your government? he said. Is it possible to take an athlete and say, Because your government has done something wrong, you automatically are out? This would not be justifiable, neither on a moral ground, not to speak on a legal ground.Bach defended the decision to reject a bid by 800-meter runner Yulia Stepanova, a former doper and whistleblower who helped expose the extent of cheating in Russia, to compete in Rio as a neutral athlete, as proposed by the IAAF.It was not easy, he said. The executive board made it really clear that it appreciates the contribution of Yulia Stepanova in the fight against doping. We offered assistance and support which no other organization has so far offered.Bach said the IOC had targeted 2,200 athletes in pre-Olympic tests ahead of Rio, and that 4,500 urine tests and 1,000 blood controls would be conducted during the games, similar to the figure in London four years ago. ' ' '