Feb. 1 (UPI) — The Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned doping bans on 28 Russian athletes on Thursday, striking down the International Olympic Committee’s sanctions just over a week before the start of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
The Swiss-based court said there was insufficient evidence to show that certain Russian athletes had broken anti-doping rules.
The ruling means Russian athletes banned from participating in the Pyeongchang Games can now seek to participate.
“Both CAS panels unanimously found that the evidence put forward by the IOC in relation to this matter did not have the same weight in each individual case,” the court said in a statement.
“In 28 cases, the evidence collected was found to be insufficient to establish that an anti-doping rule violation was committed by the athletes concerned. With respect to these 28 athletes, the appeals are upheld, the sanctions annulled and their individual results achieved in Sochi 2014 are reinstated.”
The ruling reinstates the results for those athletes — including 2014 Russian medalists Alexander Tretiakov and Elena Nikitina in skeleton; Alexander Legkov and Maksim Vylegzhanin in cross-country skiing; Albert Demchenko and Tatyana Ivanova in luge and Olga Fatkulina in speedskating.
In 11 cases, the court found that the athletes would be banned from the Games in Pyeongchang instead of a lifetime ban.
“The mandate of the CAS Panels was not to determine generally whether there was an organized scheme allowing the manipulation of doping control samples in the Sochi laboratory but was strictly limited to dealing with 39 individual cases and to assess the evidence applicable to each athlete on an individual basis,” the ruling states.
It is not immediately clear if the athletes will seek to take part in this month’s Winter Olympics. To be able to compete, they still need to be cleared by the International Olympic Committee’s Invitation Review Panel, and selected to join the delegation of 169 Russian athletes competing as neutrals.
“This may have a serious impact on the future fight against doping,” the IOC said in a statement. “Therefore, the IOC will analyse the reasoned decisions very carefully once they are available and consider consequences, including an appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal.
In December, the IOC banned the entire Russian Olympic team — preventing them from competing under the Russian national flag, and instead requiring them compete neutrally as “Olympic Athletes from Russia.”
“With regard to the participation of athletes from Russia at the Olympic Winter Games Pyeongchang 2018, the decision of the IOC Executive Board [from December] remains in place,” the IOC said. “It makes it clear that, since the Russian Olympic Committee is suspended, Russian athletes can participate in Pyeongchang only on invitation by the IOC.”
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