[Olympics] All 45 Russian Athletes Have LOST Appeal, Will Not Be Allowed To Compete

This story is breaking, but The AP has reported that the ongoing appeals of the Russian athletes looking for special dispensation to compete in this year’s Winter Olympics have been denied.

BREAKING: All 45 Russian athletes lose appeals to sports’ highest court against exclusion from the Pyeongchang Olympics.

— The Associated Press (@AP) February 9, 2018

The official IOC Media twitter account has since tweeted this msg:

IOC Statement on CAS: We welcome this decision which supports the fight against doping and brings clarity for all athletes. #PyeongChang2018 #Olympics

— IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) February 9, 2018

You may recall that Russia was banned from participation by the IOC because of a state-approved doping pandemic across the various sports disciplines.

We should note, however, that there are Russian athletes competing this year, just not under the country’s name. 169 athletes were invited to be a part of the OAR group, “Olympic Athlete from Russia”.  The way it’s been explained during NBC’s coverage thus far is if an OAR wins a gold medal, it will be the Olympic anthem that plays, and not Russia’s.

The BBC also just ran a report, but they stated there were 47 athletes denied, saying:

“Court of Arbitration for Sport dismisses appeal against Winter Olympics ban by 47 Russian athletes and coaches”

Director of the Oscar nominated documentary Icarus Bryan Fogel has issued some thoughts about the entire thing to Entertainment Weekly, who happened to publish their story right on top of the announcement of the IOC decision re: the Russians.  His hope, he says, is to provoke “clean athletes to boycott the games”.

“Russia’s been banned from the Olympics technically, but of course, within the corruption of the IOC, they’ve found their ways creatively around this ban to allow Russia in the Olympics.”

He added, “It’s a slap in the face to every clean athlete in the world to basically punish a fraud of this magnitude that was going on for 30 years with what is really, in effect, a slap on the wrist.”