LONDON -- With just over two weeks until the opening ceremony, Russia still doesnt know whether its athletes -- all or even some -- will be competing in the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. It may all come down to the lawyers.While the IOC decided Tuesday to ban from the Rio Games all Russian Sports Ministry officials and other administrators implicated in allegations of a state-run doping program, it delayed a ruling on whether to take the unprecedented step of barring the entire Russian Olympic team.The International Olympic Committee said it will explore the legal options with regard to a collective ban of all Russian athletes for the Olympic Games 2016 versus the rights to individual justice.The IOC has also said it could let individual international sports federations decide on whether to ban Russians from their events in Rio, just as the IAAF has done by ruling track and field athletes from the games. The 28 international federations that govern the individual sports at the summer games have made clear that they do not support a blanket ban,The IOCs legal options may become clearer after Thursday, when the highest court in sports will rule on an appeal by 68 Russian track and field athletes seeking to overturn their ban from the games.Two-time Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva was among those arguing the Russian track and field teams case Tuesday in Geneva at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Should the court rule Thursday in their favor, it would seemingly rule out the chance of the IOC imposing a blanket ban.If the court upholds the IAAFs exclusion of the track athletes, however, that would keep the possibility of a total ban in play. Further appeals are also possible, meaning that the final word on the Russians may go down to the wire before Aug. 5, when the Rio games open.Still, it will take a major leap for the IOC to impose the ultimate sanction of kicking out Russia entirely. IOC President Thomas Bach has repeatedly called for a balance between individual justice and collective punishment.No country as a whole has ever been barred from the games for doping, and Russia is a major force in the Olympic movement as well as a sports powerhouse. The last time Russia was missing from the Olympics was when it boycotted the 1984 Los Angeles Games in retaliation for the U.S. boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.Russian President Vladimir Putin called the doping allegations a dangerous return to ... letting politics interfere with sport.The Olympic movement, which is a tremendous force for uniting humanity, once again could find itself on the brink of division, he said in a statement Monday after the release of the report into Russian doping issued by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren.The 15-member IOC executive board met by teleconference Tuesday to consider its moves following McLarens report.The report, commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, accused the Russian Sports Ministry, headed by Vitaly Mutko, of overseeing the doping of the countrys Olympic athletes on a scale larger than previous alleged. It said the ministry had help from Russias intelligence service, the FSB.The investigation uncovered an alleged doping program that ensnared 28 sports, both summer and winter, and ran from 2011 to 2015. It found 312 positive tests that Russias deputy minister of sport directed lab workers not to report to WADA.Mutko on Tuesday denied all wrongdoing and said he expected his subordinates to be cleared. But addressing the ban by the IOC of Russian sports administrators, he said he was ready to accept it because we have always been guests at the Olympics, and that the important issue was that the Russian Olympic team go to the games.The summer sports federations prefer that doping allegations are handled on an individual basis.The Association of Summer Olympic International Federation asked WADA to immediately provide all the detailed information to the 20 international federations concerned so that they may begin processing the individual cases under their own separate rules and regulations as soon as possible, and in line with the WADA Code and the Olympic Charter.It is important to focus on the need for individual justice in all these cases.Rather than applying a total ban, federations could suspend individual Russian sports. That already was the case with the IAAF ban on Russias track athletes from Rio following previous WADA-commissioned reports into Russian doping.The summer associations position falls in line with recent comments by Bach, who cited the need for balancing individual justice and collective punishment. He said last week that, if summer sports were implicated in the McLaren report, the federations would have to decide on the eligibility of Russians on an individual basis.McLarens report also confirmed details of state-supported doping that subverted the testing at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. That included allegations by Moscows former lab director, Grigory Rodchenkov, that dirty urine samples of Russian athletes -- including medalists -- were swapped out for clean ones in covert middle-of-the-night operations at the Sochi lab.WADA and its president, Craig Reedie, urged the IOC to consider a total ban on Russia. Reedie, who is also an IOC vice president, presented details of the McLaren report to the executive board Tuesday and answered questions about it, before Bach asked him to recuse himself from the meeting because of a conflict of interest.While putting off a decision on banning Russia, the executive board announced a series of measures to punish Russian athletes and officials implicated in doping.Among the sanctions, the IOC:- said it will not organize or give patronage to any sports event or meetings in Russia, including plans to hold the European Games in the country in 2019.- will launch retesting, including forensic analysis, of doping samples from the Sochi Games. It set up a commission to carry out a full inquiry into all of the Russian athletes who competed in Sochi, along with their coaches, officials and support staff.- asked WADA to extend McLarens mandate to disclose the names of Russian athletes whose positive doping samples were covered up, and whose samples were manipulated in Sochi.- called on all international winter sports federations to freeze their plans for holding major events in Russia, including world championships and World Cups, and seek alternative venues in other countries.The IOC said the provisional measures would apply until Dec. 31, and be reviewed by the IOC that month.---AP National Writer Eddie Pells and sports writers Graham Dunbar and James Ellingworth contributed. Kyle Singler Jersey . It might not have mattered. While the Dodgers are preparing for the playoffs, the Padres showed their future has promise behind two rookies. 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"I didnt need to be anybody else, I just needed to be myself and be aggressive," said Burks, who scored a career-high 34 points to spark the Utah Jazz to a 118-103 victory over the Denver Nuggets on Monday night. (STATS) -- Eastern Washington is listing All-America wide receiver Cooper Kupp as questionable with a shoulder injury for its FCS Top 10 game against Northern Iowa on Saturday.Kupp, the 2015 STATS FCS Offensive Player of the Year, didnt play in the second half last weekend after being injured in the Big Sky Conference teams 50-44 overtime loss at top-ranked North Dakota State.Hes practiced so much that well obviously be very smart with what happens in practice this week, and then well get a feel closer to game time with where he is with his shoulder and AC joint, coach Beau Baldwin said.Kupp, a 6-foot-2, 215-pound senior, has caught a Division I-record 61 touchdowns in his career. This season, he has 17 receptions for 268 yards and five touchdowns in three halves of action.dddddddddddd.The No. 8 Eagles (1-1) are playing their home opener against a No. 10 UNI squad (1-1) coming off a loss to another Big Sky power, Montana.Injuries have been a major factor for Eastern Washington. Four other starters, linebackers Miquiyah Zamora (hamstring) and Alek Kacmarcik (concussion), nose guard Matthew Sommer (knee) and offensive guard Chris Schlichting (shoulder), also are considered questionable for the UNI game.Sophomore rover Cole Karstetter ruptured an Achilles against North Dakota State and wont play again this season. ' ' '