The International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has set November dates to hear the appeal by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency against heavy sanctions levied upon it by the World Anti-Doping Agency last year.
The hearing, which will not be held in public, will run from November 2-5, 2020, which is a Wednesday through Saturday. While there was some early discussion of a public hearing, via a WADA request, the parties involved could not come to an agreement. The CAS staged its first public hearing since 1999 for the case of WADA vs. Sun Yang and FINA back in November.
An original timeline allowed for filing of written submissions ahead of the hearing through mid-April with a no-sooner-than April 2020 date for the hearing, but with the postponement of the Olympic Games to 2021 and the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic, timelines have shifted.
The appeal comes in spite of RUSADA head Yuri Ganus not wishing to make one and saying that Russia has ‘no chance of winning.
Since Russia filed the appeal, WADA has uncovered 65 new adverse analytical findings (positive tests, in common parlance) while reviewing data from the Moscow Laboratory. This is a part of 298 total cases that WADA has investigated.
Among the major sanctions levied against Russia are blocking Russian officials from boards and committees of all World Anti-Doping Code signatories; a four-year ban on Russia hosting, bidding on, or flying the Russian flag at events hosted by code signatories; requiring Russian athletes to compete as neutral athletes at the Olympic Games; and adding an additional burden of proof to athletes to prove that they were not involved in Russian non-compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code.
Among the events scheduled to be hosted by Russia during the blackout period are the 2021 European Short Course Championships, 2022 World Short Course Championships, and 2024 European Aquatics Championships. When asked, neither FINA nor LEN were willing to make a declaration on the hosting future of those events.
CASE BACKGROUND
After RUSADA was reinstated as compliant back in September of 2018, one of the conditions was that authorities had to grant WADA Intelligence and Investigations access to the authentic Laboratory Information Management System data and underlying raw analytical data contained within the Moscow Laboratory.
After collecting data in January, an independent WADA compliance committee opened a case against RUSADA and recommended that it be declared non-compliant for a period of four years in September.
In December, RUSADA formally appealed the sanctions. On January 9th, WADA filed a formal request for arbitration with CAS in Lausanne, Switzerland to resolve the dispute.
