Johnson Cherian.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has dismissed 47 appeals from Russian athletes and coaches to participate in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, which would open later in the day.
The Russians had appealed their exclusion from the Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over the doping scandal from the 2014 Sochi Games.
Russia was banned from Pyeongchang over the Sochi 2014 doping scandal and the IOC had banned dozens of athletes from the games for life and stripped their Sochi Games medals following several investigations.
The IOC has banned dozens of Russian athletes for doping rule violations during the Sochi Olympics, based on evidence from several investigations. Russia had finished top of the medals table at their home Games. It also banned them for life from the Olympics.
But CAS upheld the appeal for 28 of them citing insufficient evidence. For 11 others evidence was enough to establish anti-doping rule violations but their lifetime Olympic ban was also commuted into a ban just from the Pyeongchang Games.
The games will still include 168 Russians who have been invited as “Olympic Athletes from Russia,” competing in neutral uniforms under the Olympic flag.
