'Cover up of cover-up' still led to downsized Russian ban
WADA had proposed a four-year ban for Russia for manipulating potentially inculpatory data it held in its Moscow lab for years before handing it over to investigators early in 2019. Still, CAS called for more lenient terms than WADA wanted, lowering the burden for Russian athletes to gain eligibility to compete as neutrals at the upcoming games in Tokyo and Beijing and softening a proposed ban on Russian government officials. The panel said it cut the sanction in part because WADA only ever intended the ban to include one Summer and one Winter Olympics. For instance, one of Russia's biggest victories was the loosening of conditions for Russian athletes to compete as neutrals. WADA had insisted athletes be able to prove they hadn't been implicated in Russia's non-compliance.
Sports court opens 4-day hearing in Russian doping case
FILE - In this Nov. 28, 2019 file photo Olympic Rings and a model of Misha the Bear Cub, the mascot of the Moscow 1980 Olympic Games, left, are seen in the yard of Russian Olympic Committee building in Moscow, Russia. The Court of Arbitration for Sport judges will start on Monday Nov. 2, 2020, hearing evidence about a manipulated database from the Moscow testing laboratory. The case centers on a Moscow testing laboratory database that was long sealed by Russian state authorities before being handed over to WADA investigators last year. The Russian anti-doping agency has not accepted being ruled non-compliant last December, nor accepted a slate of punishments proposed by WADAโs executive committee. Russian officials have denied wrongdoing and blamed a western conspiracy to stop Russian athletes competing at major sports events.