IOC rejects 15 Russian athletes for Winter Games
The International Olympic Committee rejected a request to invite 15 Russians to the Pyeongchang Winter Games just days after the athletes' doping bans were overturned by the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The 13 active athletes and two retired athletes working in support roles were among a group of 28 athletes whose bans were overturned by CAS on Thursday. The ban on 11 other Russians was upheld.
The IOC said as-yet unpublished new evidence not examined in the CAS process gave rise to new doping suspicions about the 15 Russians. The Kremlin argued the CAS decision meant the 15 should be treated as clean.
"We very much regret it. We expected that the CAS decision would dispel all suspicions against the athletes," Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "We're convinced that the CAS ruling has proved that such suspicions had no grounds." In a statement Monday, the IOC said part of its ruling was because "the full reasoning for these decisions had not been made public" by CAS.
The IOC said "the decision of the CAS had not lifted the suspicion of doping, or given the panel sufficient confidence to recommend ... those 13 athletes could be considered as clean." The IOC said the two coaches "should not be consid- ered for an invitation" because of previous evidence available to the IOC.
The IOC said it had "additional elements and/or evidence" that included "traces of prohibited substances and evidence of steroid profile manipulation." It said this raised questions about the "integrity of these athletes." The IOC did not name the athletes, but Russian officials have said they include two gold-medal winners from the 2014 Sochi Olympics cross country skier Alexander Legkov and skeleton athlete Alexander Tretiakov. They join dozens of other Russians who haven't been convicted of any doping offenses but failed to pass the IOC vetting for an invitation.
The ruling by the sports court was a blow to the IOC and has shifted some of the focus away from Friday's opening of the Games in frigid South Korea with about 3,000 athletes participating.