The Court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday overturned a rule that prevents athletes who have served out lengthy doping bans from competing in the next Olympics.
The court’s decision opens the door for a number of banned Russian biathletes to compete at their home Winter Games in Sochi in 2014.
“I have been longing for this decision,” said Dmitri Yaroshenko, a world champion biathlete whose two-year doping ban expired last December. “I even lit a candle in church and asked the priest to pray for us,” he said. “It’s great that I can compete.”
His fellow world champion Ekaterina Iourieva will also be free to compete in Sochi. Yaroshenko and Iourieva received their bans after testing positive for the blood booster EPO at a 2008 world cup event in Ostersund, Sweden.
Thursday’s ruling was made after an appeal by U.S. sprinter LaShawn Merritt, the reigning Olympic 400 meter champion, who had been banned from the London Olympics under the rule despite completing his suspension earlier this year.
A statement from the Lausanne, France-based court said the law, Rule 45 of the Olympic Charter, is “invalid and unenforceable,” leaving Merritt free to defend his title next year.
The U.S. Olympic Committee had initiated the complaint about Merritt’s exclusion, saying it effectively amounted to a second ban for a single offense.
Rule 45 prevented athletes who had served suspensions greater than six months from participating in the next two Olympics, and was ruled a violation of the International Olympic Committee’s own Statue, the statement said.
