Russia team taking shape amid doping scandal

Fencing's world governing body, the FIE, said it had "re-examined the results" of the drug tests taken by the 16-strong Russian team over the last two years and all were negative.

Volleyball's international federation, the FIVB, announced it too was submitting all 44 of Russia's roster for the beach and indoor competitions to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for final approval.

Russia won the men's indoor volleyball event at London 2012, while it claimed two silvers and a bronze in the fencing competition.

And earlier on Wednesday, the International Triathlon Union cleared the the three men and three women in Russia's triathlon squad to compete.

Fencing, triathlon and volleyball join archery, badminton, equestrian, judo, shooting and tennis in approving all of Russia's proposed athletes for the Rio Games, which start on August 5.

However, as referenced by the volleyball federation, the decisions are subject to ratification by an independent expert from CAS.

Each international federation responsible for a sport in the summer Games was asked by the IOC on Sunday to individually vet the anti-doping records of its Russian athletes before clearing them to compete.

This followed Canadian law professor Richard McLaren's explosive report into state-directed doping throughout Russian Olympic and Paralympic sport.

McLaren uncovered hundreds of positive drug tests that had been covered up by the Moscow anti-doping laboratory under orders from the Russian ministry of sport.

Fencing accounted for four manipulated tests but the FIE said the 16 selected Russian fencers had been tested in 35 different countries between 2014-16, including last month in Poland at the European Championships.

Regarding the testing in Poland, the FIE statement said: "All 24 samples returned negative results from an independent externally-appointed laboratory in Dresden, Germany."

The triathlon federation said none of its six Russian athletes was mentioned in McLaren's report or has served a ban before, and all of them have been tested by non-Russian anti-doping agencies.

Other sports, however, have followed the International Association of Athletics Federation's example and taken a much harder line on Russian eligibility.

The IAAF banned the Russian athletics federation in November after an earlier World Anti-Doping Agency-funded report uncovered systemic doping in Russia's track and field programme, and upheld that ban last month.

It was the first sport to individually assess each Russian athlete on the basis of a reversal of the "presumption of innocence" and only one of Russia's proposed 68-strong team has been declared eligible for Rio.

The Russian Olympic Committee and 67 individual Russian athletes took that decision to CAS but the Swiss-based court ruled in the IAAF's favour.

Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko tried one last time to get athletics' world governing body to change its mind with a personal plea to IAAF president Lord Coe on Tuesday.

But the IAAF firmly rejected his request to reconsider, saying: "The applications by 68 athletes for eligibility to compete in Rio were assessed carefully and on an individual basis by the IAAF doping review board, and only one of them was found to meet the criteria for exceptional eligibility.

"CAS considered the appeals of the 67 athletes fully and rejected them - there are no grounds for further review."

World Rowing took a similar hard-line approach on Tuesday, banning 22 of Russia's 28 rowers.

Rowing's international federation FISA said those banned were not "considered to have participated in doping" but had not been tested enough times outside of Russia, where the anti-doping system has been proven to be corrupt.

The ruling meant Russia lost four of the boats it qualified - with those places going to Australia (women's eight), Greece (men's four) and Italy (women's sculls and men's eight) - and can only now form a men's four with the six eligible rowers it has left.

The International Canoe Federation was another sport to block several Russians, in its case five sprint canoeists, including London 2012 men's K2 champion Alexander Dyachenko, and World Sailing ruled out one athlete but allowed Russia to call in a reserve.

Russia initially selected 387 athletes for Rio, approximately 50 fewer than for recent summer Games, but has already lost more than a hundred in the vetting process, with boxing, cycling, golf, gymnastics, handball, table tennis, taekwondo, weightlifting and wrestling still to confirm their eligibility decisions.