3 Russian Olympic medalists get doping case appeal dates
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) - Three Russian Olympic medalists have appeal hearings in doping cases at the Court of Arbitration for Sport this month.
High jumper Anna Chicherova's appeal is set for May 30-31 to challenge the IOC stripping her of a bronze medal from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the court said Wednesday.
Chicherova tested positive for the anabolic steroid turinabol in reanalysis of her urine sample eight years later. She remains the 2012 Olympic champion and a five-time world championship medalist, including the 2011 champion.
On May 15, five Russian cross-country skiers will appeal at CAS against provisional suspensions by the International Ski Federation.
The suspensions were imposed after a World Anti-Doping Agency investigator detailed a state-backed conspiracy at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
The five athletes include Alexander Legkov, 50-kilometer freestyle champion at Sochi, and Maxim Vylegzhanin, a three-time silver medalist including in the distance event.
Legkov and Vylegzhanin won their medals in a Russian podium sweep on the last day of competition and received them in the main stadium during the closing ceremony.
FIS took all five cross-country skiers out of competition in December when they were identified in a report by WADA investigator Richard McLaren. The others are Alexey Petukhov, Evgenia Shapovalova and Evgeniy Belov.
The skiers already had one defeat at CAS in February when their urgent request for an interim ruling letting them compete at the world championships was rejected.
Their hearings at CAS next week deal just with their current eligibility to compete and do not prosecute the doping allegations.
A separate International Olympic Committee panel, chaired by Swiss lawyer Denis Oswald, is judging the doping cases along with other Russian athletes in Sochi implicated by McLaren. Verdicts in those cases are not expected before August.
Legkov was among Russian Olympians accused last year of doping by the former head of the Moscow and Sochi drug-testing laboratories. Grigory Rodchenkov's interview with the New York Times prompted WADA to appoint McLaren to verify the claims.
Rodchenkov said he switched tainted urine samples for clean ones at the doping lab in Sochi, with help from people he believed to be Russian security service officers.
Legkov denied the allegation, saying at news conference last May in Moscow: "You'd have to be a complete kamikaze to do that in Russia if you're an athlete representing our nation."