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 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 offences. If Russia had an Olympic team, CAS might have said: ‘IOC, the Russians can put them on their own team. Schellenberg Wittmer, from the Swiss law firm representing the Russian athletes, said “our clients consider — rightly so — that the decisions are unfair and harmful … their Olympic dreams have been shattered.”Other athletes welcomed the end to the saga.

Source: National Post February 09, 2018 02:38 UTC