In December we informed you that clean Russian athletes would be able to compete in Pyeongchang underneath the olympic banner. (read it HERE). The official list will only be available on January 27, but the situation is in constant movement.
By Jackob Savard and Carl Savard
Photo by Tony Chung
Wednesday January 24th
Some people are wondering why Semen Elistratov is not on the list of banned athlete for Pyeongchang since he was part of the the meldonium incident of spring 2016. The thing is, when the World anti-doping agency (WADA) decided to ban meldonium, they had no idea how long it would take for the system to eliminate the substance. They announced the ban in September 2015 stating that meldonium would be illegal as of January 2016 but without having made any test to know exactly how long it could take meldonium to disapear. A small amount of meldonium showed up in a test made on Elistratov after January 2016 but after being suspended, his suspension was lifted because it was more than possible that he had stopped receiving the substance months ago as soon as meldonium was added to the illegal substances list. Compared to tennis star Maria Sharapova, Elistratov's test came out with traces, not high amounts of the substance. The whole meldonium incident was handled in a rush by WADA. Officially, Semen Elistratov has a clear record.
Tuesday January 23rd (part 2)
With only three short track speed skaters available on the men's side for the "Olympic Athlete from Russia” delegation, the delegation will not be represented in the men's relay event. Kazakhstan who finished, the World cup season in ninth place, would be call upon to fill in the available spot at the Olympics. To learn more about the situation in long track, click HERE
Other than Viktor Ahn, Vladimir Grigorev and Denis Airatepyan, it seems like Tatiana Borodulina and Evgeniya Zakharova might be the two others short track speed skater banned from the Games. We will update as soon as we learn more.
Monday January 22nd (part 2)
If you scan Instagram, you will see that some of the Russian short track speed skating athletes elligible to skate in Pyeongchang like Sofia Prosvirnova, Semen Elistratov and Ekaterina Efremenkova received their neutral olympic colours today. It is fair to say that if those received their clothing it means the table is set for the short track athletes which brings strength to the Viktor Ahn news.
Monday January 22nd (part 1)
Last Friday, the Invitation Review Panel responsible of confirming the names of the athletes elligible to be part of the delegation named “Olympic Athlete from Russia” scratched off the names of 111 out of a list of 500 Russian athletes. Today, some report says the name of Viktor Ahn would be on that first list of banned athlete who will not be allowed to participate in the Games. His teammates Vladimir Grigorev and Denis Airatepyan are supposedly also on the list. Grigorev was part of the Russian relay team that claimed victory in Sochi and finished second in the 1000m individual event. This year, Airatepyan skated all season long in the World cup events and won a medal in the relay event at the European Championships.
We'll keep updating this article as more informations will become available.
One of my favorite skater. i would be disappointed if he is not a part of the Olympics but if he's a doper from Sochi, i think it's fair to ban him this time even if he's all clean now. Athletes should be accountable if they try to cheat in their past.
RépondreEffacerIt's sad that a great career ends like this and we would've liked to see his comeback in Korea for the Games but if he's doped or was doped he should not go.
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