The Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected the appeal of the ROC: CAS ignored numerous legal arguments

Again there were no unnecessary illusions. The Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected the ROC’s appeal against the IOC’s decision to suspend our National Olympic Committee’s membership in the organization. The CAS decision was announced on February 23. In the fall, the IOC suspended the presence of the ROC in the organization due to the inclusion of the Olympic Councils of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions in its composition.

There is no longer any place to challenge the decisions of the IOC. There could no longer be any illusions, but it is also impossible to remain silent in response to the decisions made. This explains the filing of an appeal, the only official way to show that a country does not agree with the discriminatory decision of the IOC. In October 2023, the IOC temporarily suspended the ROC due to the inclusion of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions in the committee of the Olympic Councils. According to the IOC, the Russian Olympic Committee “violated the Olympic Charter.” In November, CAS registered the ROC’s appeal against this decision.

The leaders of the ROC, of ​​course, knew that objectivity – whether in court or outside it – is now out of fashion in such decisions among the official structures of international sports. Stanislav Pozdnyakov has repeatedly reminded: the objectivity of the CAS is critically low, and how can one even talk about it if the court is headed by the Vice-President of the IOC and “this does not bother anyone”? (In 2009, Australian John Coates joined the IOC Executive Committee, in 2011 he became the third president of CAS, and in 2013 he was elected vice-president of the IOC. – Ed.)

What then is the point of lawsuits if the result is predictable? “We are already working on the future and prospects. When the political foam subsides and everything returns to the limits of adequacy, we must have evidence of all the legal actions taken by the regulations.”

“The CAS panel rejected the appeal and confirmed the contested decision, finding that the IOC Executive Committee did not violate the principles of legality and equality,” the court said. The decision itself is currently subject to confidentiality testing, meaning the parties at this stage may require that the reasons or certain information contained therein remain confidential.

But the latter, in fact, is no longer interesting to anyone. It is also not surprising that the ROC’s statement draws attention to: CAS, as the reasons for the decision, rewrote the IOC’s arguments almost word for word, simply ignoring the numerous legal arguments set out in the ROC’s appeal. “Thus, the Lausanne Arbitration confirmed that the Russian Olympic team, Russian athletes and officials will not take part in the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad in Paris, as well as excluded any possible interaction of the ROC with athletes whom the IOC recognizes as meeting the criteria of the so-called. neutrality.”

The ROC believes that in relation to those athletes who are still ready to accept the conditions of participation in the Games, the IOC will make efforts to minimize the number of invitees. “The introduction of new additional screening parameters cannot be ruled out – Lausanne recently explicitly stated this. At the same time, agreement even with the current requirements of “compliance” may lead to a violation of Russian legislation,” the Russian Olympic Committee said in a statement.

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Two days after the announced decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, at the plenary session “Advances in the development of the sphere of physical culture and sports” at the exhibition-forum “Russia”, the Minister of Sports of Russia Oleg Matytsin said that work on the integration of new regions into the life of the country is actively underway. At the end of 2023, 114 regional sports organizations were registered in these regions. Through the efforts of many organizations, athletes were provided with equipment, 11 facilities were restored, sports equipment was supplied to 213 institutions, and 13 open-air playgrounds were created. These numbers already exist. Objects are already alive. Just like sports in new regions.

At the same plenary meeting, Assistant to the President of Russia Igor Levitin said that Vladimir Putin instructed the Ministry of Sports and the Russian Olympic Committee to develop proposals for the participation of Russian athletes in the 2024 Olympics in Paris. “It is necessary to decide for each federation on what conditions they will participate in the Olympic Games and what declarations they will require for participation in the Games,” Levitin said.

Back in December 2023, the President spoke about his attitude towards the proposed neutral status of Russia at the Olympic Games in Paris. “To go or not to go? Here is the point: you need to carefully look at what conditions are offered. The flag and anthem were banned, but everyone knows that these are our athletes. That’s why I previously supported our people going to competitions. Now we need to study the conditions: are there artificial restrictions to cut off our leaders? To cut off power to our team, to cut us off from gold medals. Athletes from CSKA and Dynamo are banned allegedly for connections with the Armed Forces. You need to analyze and make an informed decision. In any case, this is a matter for the Ministry of Sports and the Olympic Committee,” the president said.

The temporary suspension of the ROC, which was confirmed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, does not close the way to the Olympics for those Russian athletes who agree to compete in Paris 2024 in a neutral status.

According to Oleg Matytsin, after the final recommendations of the IOC on the criteria for the performance of Russians at the Olympic Games in Paris, which can be expected in the near future, the decision on the participation of athletes will be made jointly with the Russian Olympic Committee and the Russian sports community.

Medals forever?

There are more and more questions. Everyone has.

Bronze medalist of the 2022 Olympic Games in pair skating, Russian figure skater Alexander Gallyamov, performing in pairs with Anastasia Mishina, addressed the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach.

In his Telegram channel, the athlete asked Bach to explain the inscription on the award box presented to him along with the medal for first place in the team tournament at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. On the inside of the box it says “An Olympic medal is forever,” which translates into Russian as “An Olympic medal is forever.”

“Unfortunately, I’m not very strong in languages ​​(I’m really ashamed, since over the last 4 months I’ve received a lot of proposals for cooperation in English), so I’ll ask you to explain,” Gallyamov wrote.

Our skater published this appeal after the same CAS on January 29 disqualified the Russian figure skater Valieva for four years for violating anti-doping rules and canceled her results at tournaments from December 25, 2021. The team tournament gold medals that the Russian team and Kamila won at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing went to the US national team. The silver medals went to the Japanese, while the Russians were left with bronze.