ZURICH (Reuters) – Twenty-eight Russian athletes have had their Olympic doping bans overturned and results from the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi reinstated after their appeals were upheld by sport’s highest tribunal on Thursday.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said there was insufficient evidence of anti-doping violations against the athletes, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said they would not necessarily be invited to the Pyeongchang Games this month.
Eleven other athletes were confirmed to have committed doping offences although CAS said it had reduced their lifetime Olympic bans to a suspension from this year’s Games.
The original bans were imposed by the IOC following an investigation into alleged systematic doping at the Sochi Games which Russia hosted four years ago.
The IOC has also banned Russia from Pyeongchang as a result of its “unprecedented systematic manipulation” of the anti-doping system, although individual Russian athletes can compete as neutrals if they can meet stringent IOC criteria. Russia has repeatedly denied state involvement in doping.
Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the CAS ruling.
“This, of course, cannot but give us joy,” he told reporters. “It confirms our position on the fact that the vast majority of our athletes are clean.”
Putin added that Russia still needed to continue its fight against doping along with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Russia’s Putin welcomes ruling to overturn Sochi doping bans
“I have said many times that I have never doped and do not dope now,” he told Reuters. “What am I being accused of? What anti-doping rule violation do they want to slap against me?”
Jim Walden, lawyer for Russia’s former anti-doping chief-turned whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, said the ruling provided “a very small measure of punishment for some athletes but a complete ‘get out of jail free card’ for most”.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency said the IOC should have dealt with the matter earlier.
“Slamming dozens of cases through the process on the eve of the Olympic Games has not served justice and as such the integrity of the Games has been sabotaged,” its chief executive Travis Tygart said.
“The whole mess truly stinks and the nightmare continues for clean athletes.”
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