The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against its suspension by the IOC, decided in mid-October ahead of the 141st IOC Session in Mumbai. The Lausanne-based jurisdiction revealed this on Monday November 6 via a press release, in which it explains that the ROC “requests that the contested decision be annulled and that it be reinstated as an NOC recognized by the IOC, benefiting from all the rights and prerogatives granted by the Olympic Charter.” The ROC thus hopes to be able to continue to benefit from IOC subsidies, something impossible in the case of a suspension. As a reminder, the Russian Olympic Committee was sanctioned last month for annexing four Ukrainian sports organizations from the Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia regions. This Russian initiative was deemed by the IOC to be a “violation of the territorial integrity of the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee“, contrary to the Olympic Charter. In its press release, the CAS states that it is in the process of “exchanging written submissions between the parties” and setting up the arbitration panel. But it does not announce any hearing date, nor any deadline for its decision. In any case, the court’s position will have no effect on the presence, or otherwise, of Russian athletes at the Paris 2024 Games. A favorable ROC opinion would not force the IOC to authorize their participation, or even to accelerate its decision. Nor would the opposite scenario have any direct effect. But it would undoubtedly further reduce the chances of Russian athletes pushing open the door to the Paris 2024 Games.
