Doping charges have been dropped against 28 Russian athletes. What happens to them now?

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne has concluded that only 11 of the 43 Russian athletes penalized for breaking anti-doping rules actually broke them. Twenty-eight athletes have been fully cleared, three are awaiting hearings, and bobsledder Maxim Belugin did not contest the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decision. Meduza examines how the arbitration court reached its verdict, and looks at the cleared Russian athletes’ chances of competing in Pyeongchang.

The CAS refused to consider circumstantial evidence

The court did not offer specific explanations regarding each athlete, but its press release says the arbitration panels were not tasked with proving the existence of a doping system in Russia. Judging from the list of athletes whose guilt was upheld, the court based its ruling primarily on concrete material evidence.

For instance, the CAS upheld the disqualification of bobsledder Alexander Zubkov (a double champion in Sochi) and his colleague Aleksandr Kasyanov. The IOC rulings against Zubkov and Kasyanov included an important detail: when their samples were re-tested, they contained a level of salt impossible in a healthy person. Similar abnormalities appeared in results for biathlonist Olga Zaytseva, who is still awaiting the results of her appeal.

High salt levels were not found in the urine of skeleton racer Aleksandr Tretyakov and skier Alexander Legkov, two other gold medalists. In Tretyakov’s case, the IOC actually wrote that normal salt levels do not prove that the athlete broke no rules. The IOC’s basis for disqualifying these athletes were actually scratches on the test tubes containing their urine samples and testimony from whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov.

The CAS, however, clearly determined that this evidence was insufficient.

The IOC is invoking collective responsibility, and saying this isn’t the end of the matter

The IOC issued a strong statement after the arbitration court’s ruling, recalling that 11 athletes were still found to have committed infractions and therefore, as the IOC sees it, the verdict upholds its claim that Russia systematically manipulated athletes’ samples. "The IOC regrets very much that — according to the CAS press release — the panels did not take this proven existence of the systemic manipulation of the anti-doping system into consideration for the other 28 cases," the committee wrote, adding that it reserves the right to contest the CAS ruling in the Swiss Federal Tribunal.

Despite the CAS ruling, the IOC is still the agency that will decide whether the 28 cleared Russian athletes can take part in the Pyeongchang games. All the indications are that the Committee has no intention of simply letting them all go to the Winter Olympics.

Who will have the chance to compete in Pyeongchang if they’re all allowed in?

It’s unlikely that the IOC will let all the cleared athletes compete in South Korea, given that even totally "clean" stars like short-track speed-skater Viktor Ahn and biathlonist Anton Shipulin were not invited. But what if it happens? What kind of shape are these athletes in?

• Aleksandr Tretyakov — gold at Sochi 2014 in the skeleton. Tretyakov finished only ninth in the World Cup, which ended on January 19, but he twice finished among the medalists in qualifying events (second at Altenberg and third at Lake Placid).
• Yelena Nikitina — bronze at Sochi 2014 in the skeleton. Nikitina finished fourth in the World Cup and won two of the eight qualifying events. She has every chance of a medal in Pyeongchang.
• Aleksandr Legkov — gold at Sochi 2014 in the ski marathon. He was elected to the Moscow Oblast Duma in 2016 and did not compete in the 2015 and 2017 world championships. But Legkov says he’s been in training all this time, though he's not sure he's ready to compete in Pyeongchang.
• Maksim Vylegzhanin — three silvers at Sochi 2014 (ski marathon, relay, and team sprint). Vylegzhanin did not compete in the last world championship, but he has been preparing for the upcoming Winter Olympics.
• Nikita Kryukov — silver at Sochi 2014 in the ski team sprint. At the last world championship, Kryukov took home gold in the team sprint with Sergey Ustyugov, who has not been invited to Pyeongchang.
• Aleksandr Bessmertnykh — silver at Sochi 2014 in the ski relay. He took silver in the relay at the 2017 World Championship.
• Olga Fatkulina — silver at Sochi 2014 in the 500-meter speed skating. Fatkulina is Russia's best speed skater at 1,000 meters, but she finished only 13th in the last world championship.
• Tatyana Ivanova — silver at Sochi 2014 in the luge team relay. Ivanova and the Russian team finished third in the 2017 World Championship and she won two golds — relay and singles — in the European Championship in January 2018.

Text by Mikhail Zelensky, translation by Peter Marshall