GENEVA: The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) suspension of Russia, dismissing Russia’s appeal on Friday.
The IOC had suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in October the previous year for its acknowledgment of illegally annexed territories, which violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
In its ruling, CAS said, “The CAS panel overseeing this matter upheld the appeal dismissal and affirmed the contested decision, concluding that the IOC executive board acted within the bounds of legality, equality, predictability, and proportionality.” The decision by the CAS panel is final and binding, with the option for parties to appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal within 30 days on limited grounds.
The IOC’s suspension of the ROC came on October 12, 2023, following its decision to include regional sports organizations under the authority of Ukraine’s National Olympic Committee—namely Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia—as members.
Reacting to the suspension at the time, the ROC criticized it as “yet another counter-productive, politically motivated decision” by the IOC.
The ROC appealed the suspension to CAS, sport’s highest tribunal, on November 6.
Despite the suspension, the IOC allowed Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in the Paris Games this year as neutrals, excluding them from team events and requiring that they refrain from actively supporting the war in Ukraine. Only eight athletes from Russia and three from Belarus qualified under these conditions. In contrast, over 60 Ukrainian athletes qualified for the Paris Olympics, scheduled from July 26 to August 11. Russia denounced the conditions imposed on its athletes as “discriminatory” but indicated that athletes meeting the criteria would still compete in Paris.
