MEDIA RELEASE
ANTI-DOPING – SOCHI 2014
THE COURT OF ARBITRATION FOR SPORT (CAS) DELIVERS ITS DECISIONS IN THE MATTER OF 39 RUSSIAN ATHLETES V/ THE IOC: 28 APPEALS UPHELD, 11 PARTIALLY UPHELD
Lausanne, 1 February 2018 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has delivered its decisions (operative parts only) in 39 of the 42 cases filed by Russian athletes against the decisions taken by the Disciplinary Commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC DC) in relation to the 2014 Sochi Olympic Winter Games. The reasoned decisions will be delivered in due course. After examining each individual case, the CAS upheld 28 appeals and partially upheld the remaining 11, as follows:
Appeals upheld – no ADRV – sanctions annulled 24 Ekaterina Lebedeva (ice hockey) 1 Dmitry Trunenkov (bobsleigh) 25 Ekaterina Pashkevich (ice hockey) 2 Aleksei Negodailo (bobsleigh) 26 Tatiana Burina (ice hockey) 3 Olga Stulneva (bobsleigh) 27 Anna Shchukina (ice hockey) 4 Liudmila Udobkina (bobsleigh) 28 Ekaterina Smolentseva (ice hockey) 5 Aleksander Tretiakov (skeleton) 6 Sergei Chudinov (skeleton) Appeals partially upheld – ADRV confirmed 7 Elena Nikitina (skeleton) 29 Aleksandr Zubkov (bobsleigh) 8 Olga Potylitsyna (skeleton) 30 Alexey Voevoda (bobsleigh) 9 Maria Orlova (skeleton) 31 Alexander Kasyanov (bobsleigh) 10 Alexander Legkov (cross-country skiing) 32 Aleksei Pushkarev (bobsleigh) 11 Evgeniy Belov (cross-country skiing) 33 Ilvir Khuzin (bobsleigh) 12 Maxim Vylegzhanin (cross-country skiing) 34 Julia Ivanova (cross-country skiing) 13 Alexey Petukhov (cross-country skiing) 35 Yulia Chekaleva (cross-country skiing) 14 Nikita Kryukov (cross-country skiing) 36 Anastasia Dotsenko (cross-country skiing) 15 Alexander Bessmertnykh (cross-country skiing) 37 Galina Skiba (ice hockey) 16 Evgenia Shapovalova (cross-country skiing) 38 Anna Shibanova (ice hockey) 17 Natalia Matveeva (cross-country skiing) 39 Inna Dyubanok (ice hockey) 18 Olga Fatkulina (speed skating) 19 Alexander Rumyantsev (speed skating) Hearing postponed 20 Ivan Skobrev (speed skating) 40 Olga Zaytseva (biathlon) 21 Artem Kuznetcov (speed skating) 41 Olga Vilukhina (biathlon) 22 Tatyana Ivanova (luge) 42 Yana Romanova (biathlon) 23 Albert Demchenko (luge)
Following the investigation performed by Prof. McLaren with respect to the manipulation of antidoping procedures during the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi 2014, the IOC DC found 43 Russian athletes to have committed anti-doping rule violations during the 2014 Olympic Winter Games,
Tribunal Arbitral du Sport
Court of Arbitration for Sport
For further information related to the CAS activity and procedures in general, please contact either Matthieu Reeb, CAS Secretary General, or Katy Hogg, Communications Officer. Château de Béthusy, Avenue de Beaumont 2, 1012 Lausanne, Switzerland. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ; Tel: (41 21) 613 50 00; fax: (41 21) 613 50 01, or consult the CAS website: www.tas-cas.org From 30 January 2018 until 25 February 2018 : CAS Ad hoc Division and CAS Anti-Doping Divisions offices : Tower Condominium, Yongpyong, 715 Olympic-ro, Daegwalnyeong-myeon, Pyeongchang-gun, Gangwon-do, Korea Email : This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
disqualified them from the events in which they participated in Sochi and forfeited all medals won by them. The athletes were also declared ineligible to participate in any capacity in all subsequent editions of the Olympic Games. At the end of December 2017, all but one of the athletes (Maxim Belugin/bobsleigh) filed an appeal at the CAS.
A CAS procedure was opened for each individual athlete. Arbitral panels were constituted for each procedure and were composed of Prof. Christoph Vedder (Germany), President, Dr Dirk-Reiner Martens (Germany), and Dr Hamid Gharavi (France/Iran) for one group of procedures and Prof. Michael Geistlinger (Austria) for the second group of procedures. The remaining procedures, involving 3 biathletes, have been suspended and will be heard after the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
The procedures were conducted jointly on an expedited basis and a combined hearing took place from 22 to 27 January 2018 in Geneva. Every athlete attended the hearing, except two who were not available, and were heard individually. Several experts and fact witnesses, such as Dr Grigory Rodchenkov and Prof. Richard McLaren, testified during the hearing.
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. In 28 cases, the evidence collected was found to be insufficient to establish that an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) 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.
In 11 cases, the evidence collected was found to be sufficient to establish an individual ADRV. The IOC decisions in these matters are confirmed, with one exception: the athletes are declared ineligible for the next edition of the Olympic Winter Games (i.e. Pyeongchang 2018) instead of a life ban from all Olympic Games.
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
