The court completely acquitted 28 Russian Olympians

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne considered a class appeal of Russian athletes on doping charges and completely removed sanctions from 28 out of 42 athletes. As a result, Russia formally regained its first place at the Sochi Olympics.

• There is no motivational part of the decision yet. CAS, among other things, interviewed the chief informant of the IOC, the former head of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov, and the author of two reports on the doping system in Russia, Richard McLaren. In sports law, the decision of the CAS is peremptory, and the IOC can only challenge procedural actions.

• According to the decision of the CAS, the facts of anti-doping rule violations by 28 athletes were not established, and all sanctions against them should be lifted. These athletes will receive their Olympic medals back, and you can see who and what ones in the Dozhd photo gallery . Now the Russian team is back in first place in the Sochi 2014 Olympic medal standings.

• CAS confirmed the guilt of 11 more people, but mitigated the punishment - instead of a lifelong Olympic ban, athletes cannot participate only in the 2018 Olympic Games. Consideration of the cases of three more people has been postponed.

• The CAS decision does not mean eligible athletes can travel to the 2018 Olympics in South Korea. Invitations to the Russians are issued by the IOC, which reacted skeptically to the CAS decision and even expressed its “disappointment”. “The lack of punishment does not mean an automatic invitation (to the Olympics),” the press release says.
• In the Kremlin, of course, the decision was greeted with joy, and Dmitry Medvedev instructed to provide the Olympians with all possible assistance to participate in the Games. True, the Prime Minister mentioned 39 lawsuits, although there were 42 in total . Yesterday, Vladimir Putin apologized to the athletes.
• Due to the doping scandal, Russian athletes were deprived of several dozen medals from previous Olympics and only partially allowed to the 2016 Olympics in Brazil (for example, there was one person from athletes) and as a result, the country was completely removed from the 2018 Winter Olympics, including the ban on the flag and an anthem.

What do I get from this?

You can just be glad - the only good news about Russian athletes for a very long time.

Artem Gubenko, The Bell