Russia’s appeal against its four-year ban from all major sporting events will be heard by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) from Monday.
In December 2019, Russia’s Anti Doping Agency (Rusada) was declared non-compliant for manipulating laboratory data handed over to investigators the previous January.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) had controversially reinstated Russia in 2018 after a three-year suspension for its vast state-sponsored doping scandal.
But Wada’s executive committee made the unanimous decision to impose the ban, which bars Russia from competing in the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, set to be held next year, and football’s 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The appeal hearing, which is not open to the public, is scheduled to take place at an undisclosed venue in Lausanne, Switzerland, until Thursday. A decision will be announced at a later date.
Wada said it had “left no stone unturned in preparation for this hearing” although Russian Anti-Doping Agency spokesperson Maria Markova said she is hopeful for a positive outcome.
“Any blanket ban is no good for sports at all and is not fair to the athletes who have never been involved in any anti-doping investigation,” she said,
Only athletes who can prove they are clean competitors would be permitted to compete under the ban, and would have to do so as so-called “neutral” athletes.
A total of 168 Russian athletes competed under a neutral flag at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Russia has been banned from competing as a nation in athletics since 2015.
The final decision in the punishment now rests with Cas, whose ruling on the matter would be binding.
