Russian Olympic athletes are as much pawns as true players in the drug-infused game in which their government broke rules in a brazen attempt to win medals at any cost.
Now, all those athletes — more than 400 of them, including those who did nothing wrong — can only wait and see what their fate is for the Summer Olympics, which start in a mere 17 days.
With the clock ticking, the executive board of the International Olympic Committee meets Tuesday to go over options in the wake of a report that uncovered a state-run doping scheme that ensnared 28 sports, both summer and winter.