CAS upholds Rio Olympics ban on 68 Russian athletes

Russia is now on the brink of an outright ban from the Rio Olympics after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) this morning dismissed the appeal by their track and field athletes against their exclusion, as imposed by the IAAF last month.

The appeal against this IAAF ruling was filed by jointly by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and 68 athletes, and heard by CAS in their Lausanne offices on Tuesday: it was their last chance of overturning the IAAF ban and making an appearance in Rio. IAAF President Sebastian Coe was also in attendance in Lausanne to outline exactly why he believed the Russian track and field athletes should remain banned.

This decision has also cleared what was seen as the last legal stumbling block for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), who on Tuesday postponed a decision on whether to ban the entire Russian Olympic team from the Rio, in light on the McLaren report on state-directed doping.

After meeting on Tuesday, Olympic bosses said they would “explore their legal options with regard to a collective ban of all Russian athletes...versus the right to individual justice” - but that they also wanted to take into consideration the decision of CAS on Russia’s appeal against the ban imposed by the IAAF on the Russian track and field team.

CAS outlined the findings of their appeal in a brief statement: “In a request for arbitration filed at the CAS on July 3rd, 2016, the ROC and the 68 Claimant Athletes asked the CAS 1) to review specific legal issues, limited to the validity, enforceability and scope of IAAF Competition Rules 22.1(a) and 22.1A, and 2) to order that any Russian athlete who was not currently the subject of any period of ineligibility for the commission of an anti-doping rule violation be declared eligible to participate at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio (subject to meeting the qualification standards for his or her event).

“The CAS Panel has confirmed the validity of the IAAF’s decision to apply Rules 22.1(a) and 22.1A of the IAAF Competition Rules, which state that athletes whose national federation is suspended by the IAAF are ineligible for competitions held under the IAAF Rules, in accordance with the Olympic Charter, unless they satisfy specific criteria.

“Accordingly, since the national federation governing athletics in Russia (ARAF, now RUSAF) is currently suspended from IAAF membership, its athletes who do not satisfy the conditions set by Rule 22.1(A) are ineligible for competitions held under the IAAF Rules. These competitions include the athletics events at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

“As a consequence, the CAS Panel confirmed that the ROC is not entitled to nominate Russian track and field athletes to compete at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games considering that they are not eligible to participate under the IAAF competition rules, in accordance with the Olympic Charter.

“Since the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was not a party in the arbitrations, the CAS found that it had no jurisdiction to determine whether the IOC is entitled generally to accept or refuse the nomination by ROC of Russian track and field athletes to compete at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. For the same reason, the CAS found that it had no jurisdiction to determine whether the IOC is entitled to accept or refuse the entry either as representatives of the Russian Federation or as ‘neutral athletes’.”

With that potential legality now removed, the IOC will come under increasing pressure to impose the outright ban, with another meeting schedule for today, with a final decision expected tomorrow.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) had joined calls from national anti-doping agencies and athletes’ groups for the IOC to issue a blanket ban to Russia, and yesterday, a letter was sent to the IOC from 14 leading anti-doping agencies, including US Anti-doping, calling for on the IOC to “provisionally deny entry to all Russian athletes nominated by the ROC”.

IOC president Thomas Bach had been mindful of legal challenges but the CAS decision now removes that fear.

It follows Monday’s McLaren’s 103-page report which revealed Russia’s doping programme of staggering proportions, something Bach himself described as “a shocking and unprecedented attack on the integrity of sports and the Olympic Games”.

While the biggest decision was put on ice, the board has started disciplinary action against all those implicated by the report from the Russian sports ministry and elsewhere “because of violations of the Olympic Charter and the World Anti-Doping Code”.

The IOC board has also asked the 20 federations responsible for sports in the summer Olympic programme which were affected by Russia’s hiding of positive tests between 2011 and 2015 to follow the IAAF’s lead and consider banning their Russian member associations.