Bad start. Two weeks only before the opening of the Tokyo Games, “the team of the Olympic Committee of Russia’s athletes” has already lost two competitors. The president of the Russian rowing Federation, Alexei Svirin, confirmed to the TASS agency that rowers Nikita Morgachev and Pavel Sorin have been excluded from the delegation. They tested positive for meldonium in an out-of-competition test conducted on June 17th during a training camp in Greece. The Russian rowing team arrived in Japan on Friday, July 2nd. It had 14 rowers, two less than the planned number. The B-samples of the two rowers excluded will now be analyzed. If a positive result comes out, Nikita Morgachev and Pavel Sorin could be suspended for up to four years.
