(ATR) The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) says it is stepping in for the All Russia Athletic Federation (ARAF) in ruling on the cases of eight Russian athletes charged with anti-doping violations.
ARAF is currently suspended by the IAAF following revelations of state-sponsored doping. If ARAF fails to meet deadlines to revamp its anti-doping system to meet IAAF rules and become compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code, Russia's track and field athletes could be barred from participating in the Rio Olympics.
CAS, in a statement, says the decision to have it handle the cases stemmed from the basis of an agreement between all parties "to ensure a timely resolution of the cases with one sole instance, and which is backed by both the WADA Code and the IAAF Rules."
Five of the eight athletes are Russian race walkers who tested positive for EPO at the Saransk race walking center June 2: Vera Sokolova, Elmira Alembekova, Ivan Noskov, Mikhail Ryzhov and Denis Strelkov.
CAS will also handle three cases involving Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) issues. Middle distance runners Ekaterina Sharmina and Kristina Ugarova and heptathlete Tatyana Chernova are the athletes involved. For Ugarova and Chernova, this is considered a second anti-doping violation. CAS says it "already has pending arbitration procedures" with them relating to separatematters.
Written by Gerard Farek
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