Former USC swimmer Vladimir Morozov plans to appeal Olympics ban

Former USC and Torrance High swimming standout Vladimir Morozov plans to ask the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn his ban on competing in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

“I think we will use this right,” Russian Swimming Federation head Vladimir Salnikov said during a news conference Wednesday, according to the Russian news agency Tass.

The International Swimming Federation announced Monday that Morozov and six other Russian swimmers won’t be allowed to participate in the Games, as fallout from the country’s wide-ranging doping scandal continues.

Morozov, 24, was part of Russia’s bronze medal 400-meter freestyle relay at the London Olympics. He holds three school records at USC.

Morozov and two other Russian swimmers, Nikita Lobintsev and Daria Ustinova, were named in a World Anti-Doping Agency investigation earlier this month headed by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren.

In a Facebook post Tuesday, Morozov wrote that the ban came as a “great surprise.”

“I’ve always been a clean athlete,” he wrote. “Throughout the last 6 years I’ve been drug tested by doping control agencies at my home and at the pool, at least once a month, and sometimes every other day. … Throughout these years of constant doping control I have never had a positive test or a missed test.”

At the Los Angeles Invitational meet earlier this month, both Morozov and Lobinstev were listed as competing for the Trojan Swim Club, a USC-based organization for post-graduate swimmers.

The four other banned swimmers were withdrawn by Russia’s Olympic committee. All of the involved swimmers have appealed or are expected to do so.

nathan.fenno@latimes.com

Twitter: @nathanfenno