A Moscow court on Friday rejected the Russian Olympic Committee's (ROC) appeal against a previous ruling to allow the head of the Russian Bobsleigh Federation, Alexander Zubkov, to keep his status of an Olympic champion in Russia, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the courtroom
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th January, 2019) A Moscow court on Friday rejected the Russian Olympic Committee's (ROC) appeal against a previous ruling to allow the head of the Russian Bobsleigh Federation, Alexander Zubkov, to keep his status of an Olympic champion in Russia, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the courtroom."To leave the ruling unchanged and [leave] the complaint without satisfaction," a panel of judges said.
The Russian court ruled that Zubkov could keep the gold medals he won at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, despite the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) 2017 decision to strip him of the medals.
During the first hearing, the Moscow court ruled that the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) was based on assumptions, since "none of the witnesses, including [ex-head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory Grigory] Rodchenkov, point directly to the fact of sample substitution [by Zubkov], there was no evidence of substitution."
In turn, a Sputnik source familiar with the situation said that after the Moscow court's ruling, the IOC had instructed the ROC "to ensure the transfer of" Zubkov's gold medals "for redistribution" in accordance with the CAS decision.
The IOC Commission previously found Zubkov guilty of violating anti-doping rules, annulled his 2014 Olympic results, and banned him for life from participating in future Games. Later, the CAS replaced the lifetime ban with one that applied only to the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. Zubkov's results at the Olympics in Sochi have remained annulled.
In Russia, medals and the status of Olympic champion give athletes the right to receive a special allowance for the rest of their lives, one that Zubkov stopped getting after the scandal.
