One country is chasing the other at the PyeongChang 2018 Games. After North Korea, Russia. With, in both cases, the IOC in the role of arbiter. Sunday afternoon, Thomas Bach took his bad days to comment on the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), pronounced at the end of last week, to clear 28 of the 39 Russian athletes who appealed their disqualification from the Games.
The IOC President described the decision of the court based in Lausanne as “extremely disappointing and surprising”. Then he suggested: “This decision shows that the CAS needs to reform its structure. » The start of a standoff between the two parties? Without a doubt.
Monday February 5, the IOC responded without holding back its blows. The Olympic organization announced before lunchtime, from PyeongChang, that the 13 Russian athletes and two coaches cleared by the CAS but candidates for participation in the 2 Winter Games would not see South Korea. Their request for eligibility was refused. They will stay at the door.
According to the IOC press release, their cases were examined one by one by the two panels of experts commissioned to sort between the Russians presumed clean and those who had dipped fully clothed into the bath of doping. The first is chaired by Valérie Fourneyron, the former French Minister of Sports. The second is led by Nicole Hoevertsz, a new member of the IOC Executive Board.
The 15 files passed into the hands of the first group, called the “invitation review committee”. Its members considered that the full explanations leading to the CAS's decision to clear the complainants had not been made public. As a result, “the panel unanimously recommended to the IOC not to extend invitations to the PyeongChang Games to these 15 people, requested by the suspended Russian Olympic Committee (ROC). »
The recommendation of the review committee was then forwarded to the other team of experts, named “Implementation Group for the “Olympic Athletes from Russia” delegation, chaired by Nicole Hoevertsz. A second panel which followed the first and announced that no invitation would be extended to these 15 people.
Four days before the opening of the PyeongChang Games, the door is now double-closed for the Russians who are still candidates for an Olympic ticket. There will be 169 of them parading on Friday evening, under the Olympic flag, dressed in an outfit bearing the inscription “Olympic Athletes from Russia”. With such a contingent, Russia will be able to boast of presenting, even without the country's flag, anthem and emblem, the third largest delegation of the Games, behind the United States and Canada. A form of victory.
The IOC, for its part, can raise its head. He delivered blow for blow to the magistrates of the Court of Arbitration for Sport. But the Olympic movement would have done well without a new quarrel between its institutions.
