Court Of Arbitration For Sport To Hear Evidence In WADA vs RUSADA In November 2020

The Court of Arbitration for Sport will hear evidence at their Lausanne headquarters on 2-5 November in the doping scandal that sees Russia facing a four-year ban from international competition following the manipulation of data related to thousands of doping tests.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced the four-year suspension in December 2019 which means Russia are set to miss the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo – now scheduled to be held in July 2021 – as well as the Winter Games in Beijing in 2022.

However, given the ban comes into effect when the three-strong CAS panel hands down its verdict, it would mean that Russia would also miss Paris 2024.

Russia would also be blocked from bidding to host major championships and risk being stripped of events it was already due to host with Kazan slated to stage the World Championships in 2025.

Olympic-Rings-Drugs

The ban handed down late last year also leaves the door open for individual Russian athletes to prove themselves innocent and compete under a neutral flag.

Those athletes who are not implicated in doping may compete at a second straight Olympic Games, after Rio 2016, in neutral uniforms and with no flag nor anthem to accompany any medals they may win.

The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) appealed the decision shortly after Christmas with the matter then referred to CAS.

No timetable was given for an expected verdict which has been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

WADA had demanded RUSADA hand over data from the lab which had been shut in 2015 in exchange for recognising their status in September 2018.

After they did so in January 2019, investigators found evidence that Russia had manipulated data to remove signs of failed drugs tests as part of state-sanctioned doping.

In April this year, Russia’s sports minister Oleg Matytsin appealed that the ban be dropped and the sins of the past “put on the back burner” because the global sports community “needs to be together” during the pandemic.

He also suggested that Russia could help bail out other nations more stricken and facing economic hardship after containment measures end by taking over the hosting of international sports events cancelled and postponed elsewhere.

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