Around 42 leading Russian track and field athletes will be paid compensation from Russia's Olympians Support Fund for missing the 2016 Olympic Games, as announced by the President of the All-Russia Athletics Federation Dmitry Shlyakhtin. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that the Fund would provide financial assistance to the athletes barred from the 2016 Olympic Games.
Just one Russian athlete, Darya Klishina, made it to the Games, other 67 were barred as they were training for the competition in Russia, whose membership in the International Association of Athletics Federations had been suspended due to allegations of state-controlled doping programme before the Rio Games. Shlyakhtin said, "Financial compensation will be paid to 42 athletes and payments will be made to them simultaneously. The size of compensations will depend on the result a particular athlete could have achieved at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro." He added, "As for the size of compensations, I consider it incorrect to say what sum each will get. But I can say that the leaders (four-five athletes) who would have completed for the gold medal at the 2016 Olympics will get a very good compensation."
The list of candidates for compensation was drawn up after the sports federations gave their proposals and the Fund approved them. "There was not a case when at least one of our proposal was rejected because we had submitted documents only for the worthy athletes," he said.
