An appeals court on Thursday upheld the ban on Russia’s track and field team from the Rio Olympics, empowering sports organizations to discipline other Russian teams after revelations of a government-run doping scheme.

The International Association of Athletics Federations, track and field’s global governing body, had barred Russia’s team from competing at the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro next month because of an elaborate cheating plot, which investigators confirmed this week with forensic evidence and computer records. The Court of Arbitration for Sport, the final arbiter on global sports disputes, to which Russia had appealed, said that the penalty was legally sound.

With just over two weeks until the opening ceremony in Rio, the International Olympic Committee had deferred the decision of whether to take aggressive measures to individual sports federations like the I.A.A.F. After detailed proof of state-sponsored cheating was produced this week in a report by the World Anti-Doping Agency, Olympic officials said they would “explore legal options,” but they also indicated that they would await the arbitration court’s decision before taking action.

Thursday’s ruling, affirming the track and field organization’s authority over a nation’s Olympic participation, enables the I.O.C. to pass responsibility for the Russian doping crisis to the 28 individual sports federations that participate in the Summer Games. Olympic officials are set to convene on the matter Sunday.