Olympics
OLYMPIC AND WORLD CHAMPIONS AMONG RUSSIAN ATHLETES BANNED AFTER CAS RULING
A group of 12 Russian athletes, including the 2012 Olympic high jump champion Ivan Ukhov, have been suspended for periods ranging from two to eight years after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled against them.
The athletes banned also included Svetlana Shkolina, winner of the high jump at the 2013 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships and the bronze medallist at London 2012.
It is the first case of CAS issuing disciplinary procedures since it replaced the Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) in hearing cases following their suspension by the IAAF.
The cases are based mainly upon evidence gathered by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren and the the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU).
The cases “against several Russian athletes, in particular to the effect that these athletes participated in and/or benefited from anabolic steroid doping programmes and benefited from specific protective methods (washout schedules) in the period 2012 (Olympic Games in London) – 2013 (World Championships in Moscow),” CAS said in a statement today.
This method was invented by Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of the Moscow Laboratory, who claims he invented a fast-acting steroid “cocktail” that could be swished orally and would “wash out” of athletes’ systems quickly.
Rodchenkov has claimed he
came up with the scheme of the Government in Moscow before fleeing the country
to the United States, where he later became the main whistle blower for
authorities investigating allegations of Russian state-sponsored doping.
A full list of the 12 Russian athletes banned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport today ©CAS
The decision means that Ukhov is set to be stripped of the Olympic gold medal he won at London 2012.
That is now set to be the United States’ Erik Kynard.
Three athletes shared the bronze – Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim, Canada’s Derek Drouin and Britain’s Robbie Grabarz – meaning they will all be upgraded to silver.
Ukhov has been given a four-year ban starting from today and all his results from July 16 in 2012 retrospectively annulled.
Among other medals he is set to lose is the silver he won at the 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Sopot.
He also currently heads this year’s IAAF world indoor rankings with a best jump of 2.31 metres at Chelyabinsk on January 17.
Shkolina had won the gold medal at the IAAF World Championships in Moscow 2013, a year after finishing third at London 2012.
She will now be stripped of both of those medals, with her gold medal from Moscow set to be awarded to America’s Brigetta Barrett.
Spain’s Ruth Beitia is likely to be upgraded from fourth place to the bronze medal at London 2012.
Another significant name among those announced today is Tatyana Lysenko, winner of the gold medal in hammer at London 2012 but which she had already been stripped of in October 2016 following a re-test of her sample by the IOC.
She is now also set to lose the gold medal she won at the 2013 IAAF World Championships in Moscow, which is set to be awarded to Poland’s Anita Włodarczyk with China’s Zhang Wenxiu and Wang Zhengmoving up to silver and bronze respectively.
Lysenko has also been banned for eight years having already received a two-year doping suspension in 2008.
Russia have now been stripped of a total of 15 medals from London 2012 – five gold, eight silver and two bronze.
Lyukman Adams, a triple jumper who won the gold medal at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Sopot, has also been banned.
Cubans Ernesto Revé and Pedro Pablo Pichardo are now set to be promoted to the silver and gold medals with Romania’s Marian Oprea moving from fourth to bronze.
Vera Karmishina-Ganeeva, gold medallist in the discus at the 2013 Summer Universiade, has also been banned for two-years and had her results from July 2012 retrospectively stripped.
“Today’s CAS rulings confirm that the evidence underlying the McLaren Reports is reliable and is capable of establishing anti-doping rule violations,” Brett Clothier, head of the AIU, said
“It needs to be noted that some of these cases were fought solely on the basis of the McLaren evidence, while others were combined with analytical evidence gathered through retesting.
“It is very encouraging for us and gives us the possibility to pursue more cases in the future.”
It could have a potentially significant impact on cases involving data from the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) gathered from the Moscow Laboratory and using the underlying analytical data generated that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is currently in the process of authenticating.
“The AIU is in contact with WADA and is keeping a close eye on developments,” Clothier said.
“We will wait for more information concerning the practical aspects of the sharing of the athletics- specific data from WADA and decide on the need for any further re-analysis or investigation that may be required in order to pursue more cases.”
Other athletes among banned by CAS include Tatyana Firova, who becomes the third member of Russia’s 4×400 metre relay team that finished second at London 2012 to have been banned for doping.
They had originally won the silver medals behind the US but were stripped of them in November 2017 following positive re-tests of Yuliya Gushchina and Antonina Krivoshapka.
Firova has received a four-year ban.
A precedent for banning the Russian athletes was set in October 2017 when CAS ruled that Russian triple jumper Anna Pyatykh had used banned substances based on records of secret drug testing in 2013 following a case bought by the AIU.
Documents leaked by Rodchenkov mentioned Pyatykh as part of a “washout” scheme, with unofficial internal testing finding four banned substances in the run-up to the 2013 IAAF World Championships.
It was no surprise that WADA hailed the verdict to ban the 12 athletes and also claimed that it justified their decision to reinstate the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, allowing them to access to the Moscow Laboratory.
“These decisions come as welcome news for athletes, anti-doping organizations, WADA and all others around the world who care about clean sport,” said WADA director general Olivier Niggli.
“This should serve to reassure athletes that a lot of work is being conducted behind the scenes by various organisations that are committed to ensure that justice is rendered.
“It reinforces the importance of ensuring that due process is followed and that evidence is carefully presented.
“This highlights also, once again, just how important the successful retrieval of the analytical data from the former Moscow Laboratory by WADA last month is for clean sport and reinforces the decision taken by the WADA Executive Committee to reinstate as compliant the Russian Anti-Doping Agency under strict conditions, including access to the data.
“This large amount of data, which would not have been retrieved without that September ExCo decision, is currently being verified and assessed and, if found to be authentic, will be used to bring forward more cases against those who cheated.”
- Insidethegames.biz
The French capital will pay tribute to Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei, who was set on fire by her boyfriend, by naming a sports facility in her honour, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced on Friday.
The marathon runner, who competed in the Paris Games last month died on Thursday, four days after she was doused in petrol and ignited by her boyfriend in Kenya, in the latest attack on a female athlete in the country.
The 33-year-old, who finished 44th in her Olympic Games debut, suffered burns to more than 75% of her body in Sunday’s attack, Kenyan and Ugandan media reported.
“She dazzled us here in Paris. We saw her. Her beauty, her strength, her freedom, and it was in all likelihood her beauty, strength and freedom which were intolerable for the person who committed this murder,” Hidalgo told reporters.
“Paris will not forget her. We’ll dedicate a sports venue to her so that her memory and her story remains among us and helps carry the message of equality, which is a message carried by the Olympic and Paralympic Games.”
Cheptegei is the third prominent sportswoman to be killed in Kenya since October 2021. Kenyan Sports Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described Cheptegei’s death as a loss “to the entire region”.
“This is a critical moment— not just to mourn the loss of a remarkable Olympian, but to commit ourselves to creating a society that respects and protects the dignity of every individual,” Uganda’s Athletes commission Chair Ganzi Semu Mugula said on Friday.
-Reuters
Engineer’s descendants say French capital landmark ‘not intended as advertising platform’
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.
“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.
“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.
Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has triggered a heated debate by saying she wants to keep the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower after the summer Games are over.
“The decision is up to me, and I have the agreement of the IOC [International Olympic Committee],” she told the Ouest-France newspaper over the weekend.
“So yes, they [the rings] will stay on the Eiffel Tower,” she added.
Some Parisians backed the move, but others – including heritage campaigners – said it was a bad idea and would “defile” the French capital’s iconic monument.
The five rings – 29m (95ft) wide, 15m high and weighing 30 tonnes – were installed on the Eiffel Tower before the Paris Olympics opened on 26 July, and were expected to be taken down after the Paralympics’ closing ceremony on 8 September.
But Ms Hidalgo said she wanted to keep the interlaced rings of blue, yellow, black, green and red, symbolising the five continents.
She added that the current rings – each one measuring 9m in diameter – were too heavy and would be replaced by a lighter version at some point.
The Socialist mayor also claimed that “the French have fallen in love with Paris again” during the Games, and she wanted “this festive spirit to remain”.
Some Parisians as well as visitors to the French capital supported the mayor.
“The Eiffel Tower is very beautiful, the rings add colour. It’s very nice to see it like this,” a young woman, who identified herself as Solène, told the France Bleu website.
But Manon, a local resident, said this was “a really bad idea”.
“It’s a historic monument, why defile it with rings? It was good for the Olympics but now it’s over, we can move on, maybe we should remove them and return the Eiffel Tower to how it was before,” he told France Bleu.
Social media user Christophe Robin said Ms Hidalgo should have consulted Parisians before going ahead with her plan.
In a post on X, he reminded that the Eiffel Tower featured a Citroën advert in 1925-36.
The Eiffel Tower was built in1889 for the World’s Fair. The wrought-iron lattice tower was initially heavily criticised by Parisian artists and intellectuals – but is now seen by many as the symbol of the “City of Light”.
Ms Hidalgo, who has been running Paris since 2014, is known for her bold – and sometimes controversial – reforms.
Under her tenure, many city streets, including the banks of the river Seine, have been pedestrianised.
Last year, she won convincingly a city referendum to ban rental electric scooters. However, fewer than 8% of those eligible turned out to vote.
But both drivers’ groups and opposition figures attacked the scheme, saying the SUV classification was misleading as many family-size cars would be affected.
France’s Environment Minister Christophe Béchu said at the time that the surcharge amounted to “punitive environmentalism”.
And just before the Paris Olympics, Ms Hidalgo and other officials went into the Seine to prove the river was safe to swim.
-BBC
The Athletics Integrity Unit said on Wednesday it has filed an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in the case that cleared American sprinter Erriyon Knighton of a doping offence, thus allowing him to compete at the Paris Olympics.
Knighton, 20, tested positive for a banned substance in March but avoided a ban as the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said an independent arbitrator ruled it was likely caused by contaminated meat and that he was not at fault and had not acted with negligence.
The finding cleared the 200 metres world silver medallist to run at the U.S. Olympic trials in June and he went on to compete in Paris where he finished fourth in the men’s 200m final.
The AIU, an independent body created in 2017 by World Athletics to manage integrity issues for the sport of athletics, said it has challenged the first instance decision that Knighton had established no fault or negligence.
“This appeal is against the decision of an arbitration tribunal in the United States that the athlete established no fault or negligence after USADA brought charges against the athlete for the presence of epitrenbolone and use of trenbolone,” the AIU said on X.
USADA Chief Executive Travis Tygart said in a statement on Wednesday he understood the AIU’s reasons for appealing the case, which he called an example of the system at work, before pointing a finger at the World Anti-Doping Agency.
“The real issue in this case is WADA’s bad rule. Trenbolone, the substance in Knighton’s case, is a known livestock enhancer and known to be found in the meat supply,” Tygart said.
“We have advocated for the rules around contamination to formally change for years, and WADA has refused to act swiftly.”
U.S. and global anti-doping authorities have been at loggerheads since the case involving 23 Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned substance before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 but were allowed to compete.
-Reuters
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