IOC sanctions six Russian athletes and closes one case as part of Oswald Commission findings

Today, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has published new decisions from the Oswald Commission hearings, which are being conducted in the context of the Sochi 2014 forensic and analytic doping investigations. As a result, six Russian ice hockey players, Inna DYUBANOK, Ekaterina LEBEDEVA, Ekaterina PASHKEVICH, Anna SHIBANOVA, Ekaterina SMOLENTSEVA and Galina SKIBA, have been sanctioned. The case opened against a seventh athlete has been closed without a sanction.

More hearings concerning other athletes will be held over the next few weeks.

As of now, the number of cases opened by the Disciplinary Commission has reached 46 after additional findings from the re-analyses. Thirty-three of them have already been heard, of which two have been filed. As some investigations are still ongoing (notably the forensic analysis of the bottles), it cannot be excluded that there might be new elements that would justify opening further new cases.

The IOC Disciplinary Commission, composed for these six cases of Mr Denis Oswald (Chairman), Mrs Gunilla Lindberg and Mr Patrick Baumann, decided the following:

- Inna DYUBANOK, Ekaterina LEBEDEVA, Ekaterina PASHKEVICH, Anna SHIBANOVA, Ekaterina SMOLENTSEVA and Galina SKIBA are found to have committed anti-doping rule violations pursuant to Article 2 of the International Olympic Committee Anti-Doping Rules applicable to the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, in 2014, and are disqualified from the events in which they participated.

- The six athletes are declared ineligible to be accredited in any capacity for all editions of the Games of the Olympiad and the Olympic Winter Games subsequent to the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014.

- The Russian Team is disqualified from the Women’s Ice Hockey Event and the International Ice Hockey Federation is requested to modify the results of the event accordingly.

The decision on Inna DYUBANOK is available here.

The decision on Ekaterina LEBEDEVA is available here.

The decision on Ekaterina PASHKEVICH is available here.

The decision on Anna SHIBANOVA is available here.

The decision on Ekaterina SMOLENTSEVA is available here.

The decision on Galina SKIBA is available here.

The reasoning for these decisions will be communicated in due course.

In addition to these six decisions, the IOC Disciplinary Commission has issued a seventh decision in which it found that the elements in the file and the conclusions of the investigations conducted so far were not sufficient to establish an anti-doping rule violation. Accordingly, the disciplinary proceedings opened against the athlete were terminated and the case filed. In order to protect the rights of the athlete, the identity of the athlete concerned will not be disclosed and the decision will not be published at this point in time.

For further details, please consult the following factsheet.

The Disciplinary Commission, chaired by IOC Member Denis Oswald, is responsible for investigating the alleged doping violations by individual Russian athletes. Therefore, all the samples collected from Russian athletes at the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014 that were available to the IOC were re-analysed. This had two goals: to further review the samples for evidence of doping, and separately to determine if the samples themselves or the bottles were manipulated or tampered with.

Due to the nature and complexity of the cases, this thorough, comprehensive and time-consuming process has taken several months and had to involve external forensic experts, who had to develop a legally-defendable methodology for all the cases under the jurisdiction of the Disciplinary Commission. Due process has to be followed, and re-analysis is still underway.

The IOC showed its determination to protect clean athletes from the very beginning of the case, in July 2016, by immediately establishing the Disciplinary Commission and the Inquiry Commissions, following the publication of the McLaren report. The IOC took this extra measure as Prof. McLaren did not have the authority to bring forward Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV) cases against individual athletes.

The Oswald Commission has announced that all hearings for active athletes who could qualify for the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 will be completed shortly. In accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code, confidentiality has to be respected in the interests of the athletes concerned. The purpose of this work is to ensure that the International Federations (IFs) have the necessary tools to protect the qualification competitions. The outcome of the hearings will be announced as soon as possible after each individual hearing. This will allow the IFs to follow up with their own disciplinary hearings immediately, and to take the athletes concerned out of the qualification system as soon as possible.

On 5 December, the IOC Executive Board suspended the Russian NOC and created a path for clean individual athletes to compete in PyeongChang 2018 under the Olympic flag.

Click here for more information about the IOC Disciplinary and Inquiry Commissions and the Sochi 2014 forensic and analytic investigations.

25 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is www.aroundtherings.com, for subscribers only