No more Russian Winter Games athletes: IOC

The Russian Olympic Committee's request for 13 athletes and two coaches to be invited to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics has been turned down.

A Russian request to allow athletes and coaches to take part in the Pyeongchang Winter Games has been turned down.

A Russian request to allow athletes and coaches to take part in the Pyeongchang Winter Games has been turned down. Source: AP

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has turned down a Russian request to allow 13 athletes and two coaches to take part in the Pyeongchang Winter Games.

The Russians were among 28 whose Olympic suspensions were lifted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ahead of the February 9-25 Games.

The suspended Russian Olympic Committee had asked for the 15 to be allowed to take part as Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) under the Olympic flag.

But the IOC's OAR implementation group turned down the request based on a recommendation by the invitation review panel, chaired by former French sports minister Valerie Fourneyron, the IOC said.

The IOC added it was still waiting for the full reasoning behind the February 1 CAS ruling.

The review panel said they reviewed all 13 athletes on a case-by-case basis and anonymously, using the same methodology as its initial review.

It concluded the CAS decision "had not lifted the suspicion of doping" or given it "sufficient confidence" to recommend that the 13 athletes "could be considered as clean."

Furthermore, there were "additional elements and/or evidence" which had not been available to the IOC Oswald Commission, which investigated doping violations at the 2014 Sochi Games. These "raised suspicion about the integrity of these athletes," it said.

"The additional information included data from the LIMS (Moscow lab information management system) database, traces of prohibited substances, evidence of steroid profile manipulation and further confidential information provided to the panel by (World Anti-Doping Agency) WADA."

The decision has been communicated to the IOC athletes' commission which supports the position, the IOC said.

IOC president Thomas Bach said Sunday the CAS ruling was "extremely disappointing and surprising for the IOC."

The CAS decision "does not mean you are entitled to receive an invitation from the IOC, because receiving this is a privilege for clean Russian athletes," Bach said.

CAS had overturned life bans on 28 Russian athletes linked to doping but of these 13 had retired from sport. That left 15 hoping to take part in Pyeongchang, including two who had become coaches.

The IOC has invited 169 Russian athletes to compete at the Games under the OAR banner without their national symbols and anthem.

The Russian Olympic Committee was suspended by the IOC in connection with doping practices in Sochi, and almost 50 athletes were handed Olympic life bans.


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