WHILE not necessarily representative of form heading directly into the Olympics, the 2016 world rankings – according to the IPC’s website – give a picture of the Russian team’s strength in the months approaching Rio.
Overall, there were 51 instances of Russian athletes and relay squads placing inside the world’s top three. Based on the spread of Russian athletes who missed out on competing in Rio, the Brazilian team came away with four extra medals in events where their Russian competitors could reasonably have been expected to be among the podium places, with eight medals of their 33 medals being impacted in one way or another by this.