The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will rule tomorrow on whether or not to overturn a four-year ban on Russia across international sport.
The ruling will be the culmination of a long-running dispute between Russia and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). In 2019, WADA officially declared the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) as non-compliant. That designation comes with a four-year ban on Russia’s participation in international sporting events.
The ban mostly affects Russia at the administrative level. Russia would not be allowed to host any World Championships or major sporting events for a four-year period. (For swimming, that would move the 2022 Short Course World Championships, 2021 European Short Course Championships, and 2024 European Aquatics Championships out of Russia.) Russian officials would not be allowed to sit as members of boards or committees on any WADA Signatories, which includes most major international sport governing bodies.
Russia as a nation would not be allowed to compete at the 2021, 2022, or 2024 Olympics. But Russian athletes would be able to compete under a generic flag, provided they could demonstrate that they weren’t specifically implicated in the ongoing state-run doping program scandal.
RUSADA appealed the ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport last December. CAS announced today that it would publish its final decision tomorrow on the CAS website.