LAUSANNE, Switzerland — The Court of Arbitration for Sport will not intervene in a dispute between the International Bobsled and Skeleton Federation and its doping tribunal over letting Russian athletes compete despite their Olympic life bans.
The IBSF says the court decided it had "clearly no jurisdiction" to hear an appeal against the doping tribunal clearing seven Russians to race in World Cup and other non-Olympic events run by the IBSF. All seven remain banned for life by the IOC for benefiting from state-backed doping
It means 2014 Sochi Olympic medallists Aleksandr Tretiakov and Elena Nikitina can start Friday in skeleton World Cup races at Altenberg, Germany.
The CAS ruling, by appeals division chairwoman Corinne Schmidhauser, was based only on jurisdiction. It did not weigh evidence against the athletes or the credibility of whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov.
The IBSF’s doping tribunal refused last month to provisionally suspend Russian athletes, citing a possible breach of international law because Rodchenkov had not been cross-examined. He is a protected witness in the United States.
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