Story highlights
- Yelena Isinbayeva to lodge appeal at the CAS
- IOC backs IAAF's Russian suspension
- But individual Russian athletes could still go to Rio
(CNN)Yelena Isinbayeva, long considered the world's greatest female pole vaulter, insists she will fight for a place in the Olympics at Rio in August, despite the doping ban on Russia's track and field team.
"I never give up," Isinbayeva, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and the current female world record holder, told CNN. "I will appeal in the Court of Arbitration of Sport, and if they are satisfied with my appeal then I will have the right to compete in Rio under the Russian flag. Of course it gives me hope."
TheCourt of Arbitration of Sport -- sport's final court of appeal -- is based in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Inside Rio's 24-hour anti-doping lab 02:23
IOC leaves door open
Earlier this week, the International Olympic Committee said it planned to "fully respect the decision of the IAAF Council," which upheld its previous ban on Russian track and field athletes competing on the global stage.
However, IOC president Thomas Bach gave some hope to Russia's athletes, saying he expected some individual Russians to take part if cleared by the IAAF and that "they will compete under the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee."
The IOC deemed competing under the Russian flag was appropriate as only the Russian Athletics Federation had been banned and not the Russian Olympic Committee.
Any Russian athletes hoping to compete in Rio would have to undergo further doping checks.
'Dirty'
Isinbayeva, who also has three world championships to her credit, has been an outspoken critic of Russia's doping ban.
"Track and field is about individuals. We are not a team sport. Every athlete is responsible for themselves, for their behavior, for their deeds. So why should I be responsible for the mistakes of others?" she asked.
"How can you consider everyone is dirty?" she continued. "From my side, this is a big mistake."
Isinbayeva's situation contrasts with that of whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova, whose evidence effectively led to the revelations of systematic doping within Russian track and field.
Stepanova has been relocated to Canada but the 29-year-old middle-distance runner hopes to qualify for and compete in Rio under the IOC flag.
Photos: Gold, silver and bronze
Photos: Gold, silver and bronze
With just 51 days to go until the 2016 Olympic Games gets under way, organizers have revealed to the world the medals that Usain Bolt and co. will be battling it out for in Rio de Janeiro.
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Photos: Gold, silver and bronze
A grand total of 2,488 medals will be on offer to athletes at the Games, which run from August 5 to August 21, with 812 of those gold, 812 being silver and 864 bronze.
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Photos: Gold, silver and bronze
Weighing in at 500g, the medals have been made with "sustainability at their heart," according to organizers, while they feature a design that "celebrates the relationship between the strengths of Olympic heroes and the forces of nature."
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Photos: Gold, silver and bronze
The gold medals are free from mercury, with the silver and bronzes having been produced using 30 percent recycled materials, while half of the plastic in all of their respective ribbons come from recycled plastic bottles.
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Photos: Gold, silver and bronze
The designs on the medals feature laurel leaves -- a symbol of victory in ancient Greece -- surrounding the Rio 2016 logo, while the other side boasts an image of Nike -- the Greek goddess of victory -- with the Panathinaiko Stadium and the Acropolis in the background.
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Photos: Gold, silver and bronze
The Paralympic medals were also revealed and have a tiny device inside which makes a noise when it is shaken, allowing visually impaired athletes to know if they are gold, silver or bronze -- gold has the loudest noise, with bronze the quietest.
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Photos: Gold, silver and bronze
All medals are slightly thicker at their central point compared with their edges, and the name of the event for which the medal is won will be engraved by laser along its outside edge.
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Photos: Gold, silver and bronze
"Today marks the start of the final countdown to the first Olympic Games to be staged in South America," International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said at the launch event in the Barra Olympic Park in Rio.
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"Beyond all doubt, we intend to defend the interests of our sportsmen -- I mean, those sportsmen who are not associated in any way with doping use," said Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov, who has discredited Stepanova's claims.
Photos: Battling drug cheats
The World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) new report is the latest twist to hit the Russian doping scandal, building on Professor Richard Mclaren's initial findings, published in July, which concluded doping was widespread among Russian athletes.
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
More than 1,000 Russian athletes across 30 sports -- including football -- benefited from state-sponsored doping, according to the latest report.
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
The doping program, across summer, winter and Paralympic sports, was in operation from 2011 to 2015, said Mr McLaren, who presented his latest findings at a news conference in London Friday.
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
WADA's initial report on alleged widespread drug use in international athletics concluded that senior figures including IAAF president Sebastian Coe (pictured) "could not have been unaware of the extent of doping."
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
Former WADA president Dick Pound chaired a press conference held in Munich on January 14, 2016 to present the 89-page report. It said "corruption was embedded" and "cannot be blamed on a small number of miscreants" within the IAAF.
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
A report by the IAAF's ethics committee claims a powerful trio blackmailed Russian distance runner Lilya Shobukhova into paying them off to keep results of her positive drug tests secret.
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
Russia's former athletics president Valentin Balakhnichev, its ex-chief coach for long-distance athletes Alexei Melnikov and former IAAF consultant Papa Massata Diack have all been banned for life. The report said "far from supporting the anti-doping regime, they subverted it." The IAAF's former anti-doping director Gabriel Dollé has been given a five-year ban.
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
The report claims Balakhnichev, Melnikov and Papa Massata Diack "conspired together ... to conceal for more than three years anti-doping violations by an athlete at what appeared to be the highest pinnacle of her sport. All three compounded the vice of what they did by conspiring to extort what were in substance bribes from Shobukhova by acts of blackmail."
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
Pound produced an independent report in November 2015 which detailed systemic doping in Russia along with an establishment effort to cover it up. He recommended Russia be banned from athletic competition, which it duly was by the IAAF.
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
The findings uncovered a "deeply-rooted culture of cheating at all levels" within Russian athletics. Asked if it amounted to state-sponsored doping, Pound told reporters: "In the sense of consenting to it, there's no other conclusion."
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
The report suggested the London 2012 Olympics -- in which Russia won 24 gold medals and finished fourth -- was "in a sense, sabotaged by the admission of athletes who should have not been competing."
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
Pound's report detailed "corruption and bribery practices at the highest levels of international athletics," evidence of which has been given to international crime-fighting organization Interpol for further investigation.
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
Senegal's Lamine Diack, former president of the IAAF, is being investigated by French police over claims he accepted bribes to defer sanctions against drug cheats from Russia. French prosecutors claim he took "more than €1 million ($1M)" for his silence. Diack has yet to comment.
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Photos: Battling drug cheats
Coe, a former Olympic gold medalist, has come under fire for his praise for predecessor Diack, whom he called the sport's "spiritual leader" when he took over the role in August 2015. He told CNN he would "do anything to fix our sport."
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IOC fully supports IAAF decision on Russia ban 00:53
