Appeals by 45 Russian athletes against bans rejected.
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Russia’s desperate attempt to get 45 banned athletes — including several medal favorites — into the Pyeongchang Olympics failed just hours before Friday’s opening ceremony.
The International Olympic Committee had banned Russia because of a massive doping scheme at the 2014 Sochi Games, but it gave individual athletes the chance to apply for admission to compete as Olympic Athletes from Russia. There were 168 Russians who passed the vetting process. Dozens more filed appeals with the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
On Friday, the court upheld the IOC’s right to decide who can compete.
Anti-doping officials praised the ruling, which is a heavy blow to Russian medal chances.
“That’s it. The story is over,” Russian delegation spokesman Konstantin Vybornov said. Shamil Tarpishchev, a Russian member of the IOC, said the ruling may have been legally correct but he disagreed with the spirit of the ruling.
After two days of hearings, the Court of Arbitration for Sport panel ruled that the commissions which evaluated whether Russian applicants were eligible did not act in a “discriminatory, arbitrary or unfair manner.”
Court of Arbitration for Sport Secretary General Matthieu Reeb said the IOC process “could not be described as a sanction but rather as an eligibility decision.”
Olympic and World Anti-Doping Agency officials welcomed the ruling, with the IOC saying the decision “supports the fight against doping and brings clarity for all athletes.”
Among those excluded are six-time gold medalist Viktor Ahn, the shorttrack speedskater whose return to his native South Korea for the Olympics had been eagerly anticipated by local fans.
Also out are cross-country skiing gold medalist Alexander Legkov and skeleton gold medalist Alexander Tretiakov, as well as potential medal contenders in biathlon, luge and bobsled.
Three former NHL players — Sergei Plotnikov, Anton Belov and Valeri Nichushkin — also lost appeals, though it was widely considered unlikely they would have played even if they had been successful because the Russian roster is already full.
U.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief executive Travis Tygart said the decision was “a small glimmer of hope in an otherwise dark and sordid affair.”
In a telephone interview, WADA president Craig Reedie told The Associated Press: “I am delighted at the decision and the way they expressed it.”
The Court of Arbitration for Sport panel has “clearly understood that there was systemic manipulation of the anti-doping process,” Reedie said. “Athletes can get their heads down and go. This particular issue is behind us.”
The IOC’s vetting process was designed to exclude Russian athletes from the games if IOC officials weren’t sure they were clean.
The “Olympic Athletes from Russia” will compete in neutral uniforms under the Olympic flag in a decision designed to balance the rights of individual athletes with the need for a strong deterrent to doping.
The Russians wore gray jackets with white scarves at the opening ceremony, and were carrying the Olympic flag.
In Russia, the lower house of Russian Parliament — the State Duma — issued a statement deploring the verdict as a reflection of “crude pressure and political struggle in a sports field defying Olympic principles.”
The IOC has refused to comment on individual Russian athletes but says it decided who to exclude using a newly obtained Moscow laboratory database with evidence of past doping offenses.