International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach (L) and Chair of IOC Inquiry Commission into alleged Russian doping at Sochi 2014 Swiss Samuel Schmid attend a press conference following an executive meeting on Russian doping, on December 5, 2017 in Lausanne. (AFP PHOTO)
MOSCOW, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- Russian officials commended a ruling from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upholding the appeals of 28 Russian athletes against their lifetime ban on doping charges."This means that the athletes who filed these appeals are fully rehabilitated. With regards to them, all restraining decisions are no longer valid, their biography is absolutely clean, and all the rewards they have acquired are restored," Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told a government meeting.
"The information about the ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in relation to our athletes, confirms that dynamic action to protect their rights in court and in other categories are justified, can be effective and must continue," RIA Novosti News agency quoted the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
"We are satisfied with this ruling, it shows yet again that there are no doping schemes and conspiracies in Russia," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.
Earlier on Thursday, the CAS ruled to uphold the appeals of 28 Russian athletes against the decisions of the Disciplinary Commission (DC) of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban them for life from participating in the Olympic Games for doping violations.
The IOC DC found that 43 Russian athletes have committed anti-doping rule violations during the 2014 Olympic Winter Games, disqualified them from the events in which they participated in Sochi and made them forfeit all their medals. The athletes were also declared ineligible to participate in any capacity in all subsequent editions of the Olympic Games.
Most of these athletes launched appeals to the CAS.
The CAS said in a statement on Thursday that it had found in 28 cases that the collected evidence was insufficient to establish that an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) was committed by the athletes concerned.
For these athletes, the appeals were upheld, the sanctions annulled and their individual results from Sochi 2014 were reinstated.
In 11 cases, the evidence collected was found to be sufficient to establish an individual ADRV. The IOC's decisions in these matters were confirmed, with one exception: the athletes were declared ineligible for the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games instead of a lifetime ban from all Olympic Games.
Judgments in three other cases were postponed until after the PyeongChang Olympics.
Nevertheless, the IOC has cast serious doubts on the athletes' participation in the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.
The result of the CAS decision does not mean that athletes from the group of 28 will be invited to the Games, the IOC said in a separate statement later on Thursday.
"Not being sanctioned does not automatically confer the privilege of an invitation. In this context, it is also important to note that, in his press conference, the CAS Secretary General insisted that the CAS decision does not mean that these 28 athletes are declared innocent," the statement said.
IOC will analyze the reasoned decisions very carefully once they are available and consider the consequences, including an appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal.
The president of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) Alexander Zhukov said on Thursday that the ROC is mulling various legal steps to protect the rights of the Russian athletes cleared of doping charges by the CAS in light of the IOC statement.
"We are working with lawyers and planning our further actions," Zhukov told Interfax.