Decision on Rob Heffernan’s Olympic medal to be made on Thursday

Rob Heffernan’s long wait for Olympic justice is very nearly over, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to decide by Thursday whether or not to retrospectively award him the bronze medal from the 50km walk at the London 2012 Games.

A statement from the CAS offices in Lausanne confirmed that the cases of the six Russian athletes who were issued with “selective disqualification of results” by the Russian Anti-doping Agency (RUSADA) “have all been referred to the same panel of CAS arbitrators” and a decision “is expected by March 24th”.

If one of those athletes, Sergey Kirdyapkin, loses his case then Heffernan will be automatically promoted to the Olympic bronze medal from the 50km walk, where he finished fourth - and which Kirdyapkin originally won, only to later fail a doping test.

All six cases have been on the CAS books since March of last year, when the IAAF appealed the RUSADA decision to issue these selective disqualification periods, including to Kirdyapkin: he failed a doping test in January 2015, only his ban, bizarrely, only included periods from July 2009 to June 2012, and from October 2012 onwards - effectively suggesting he was somehow clean during the London Olympics.

Heffernan has been trying to avoid the distraction of it all in recent weeks, especially as his focus is now firmly fixed on the Rio Olympics, although clearly keen nonetheless for a decision on the matter.

“Yeah, of course, it’s huge,” he said. “There’s nothing bigger in any sport than an Olympic medal. I think there’s a part of my brain that’s thinking, ‘I’m definitely going to get it’. And then there’s a part of me going, ‘just give me the medal and I’m going to run away before they take it back off me’. So there’s a part of my brain doesn’t want to deal with all of it, in case something goes wrong. But then I think, ‘no, no, I’m going to get it, and that’s it’.

“But, saying that, I’m just so busy with what I’m doing at the moment. I’m putting so much focus into going to Rio being able to challenge for a medal. To go to any Olympics able to challenge for a medal is a huge thing. I train twice a day. I sleep during the day, and I have four kids. So I really haven’t got time to worry about what’s going with this right now.”