IOC Sanctions More Russian Athletes from Sochi

(ATR) Eleven more Russian athletes are sanctioned in the latest findings by the IOC's Oswald Commission.

Only two of the 11 finished on the podium at Sochi 2014 with lugers Tatyana Ivanova and Albert Demchenko winning silver medals.

Also found guilty of doping and disqualified from Sochi are speed skaters Ivan Skobrev and Artem Kuznetcov, cross-country skiers Nikita Kryukov, Alexander Bessmertnykh and Natalia Matveeva, bobsledders Liudmila Udobkina and Maxim Belugin and Ice hockey players Tatiana Burina and Anna Shchukina.

The athletes are banned from any future Olympics "in any capacity". The IOC statement added that the reasoning for these decisions "will be communicated in due course".

The 11 new decisions released on Friday were the most for a single day since the start of the Oswald Commission, which is responsible for investigating the alleged doping violations by individual Russian athletes in Sochi. As part of that process, all the samples collected from Russian athletes during the 2014 Winter Games that were available to the IOC were re-analyzed.

The total number of cases opened by the commission stands at 46 after additional findings from the re-analyses. More cases could be opened and more hearings held with investigations still underway.

The Oswald Commission has announced that all hearings for active athletes who could qualify for PyeongChang 2018 will be completed shortly. The outcome of the hearings will be announced as soon as possible after each individual hearing.

This will allow the International Federations to follow up with their own disciplinary hearings immediately, and to take the athletes concerned out of the qualification system for PyeongChang as soon as possible.

Written by Gerard Farek

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