Russia is back to the first place in the unofficial 2014 Winter Olympics medal tally after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) cleared 28 Russian athletes and dropped their life-bans over alleged doping violations.
On Thursday CAS reinstated results of 28 Russian athletes, making them eligible to compete in the 2018 Winter Games, overturning their life-bans over alleged doping.
The move doesn’t necessarily mean that these 28 athletes will be invited to the 2018 Games, the IOC said in a statement issued shortly after the announcement of the CAS decision.
“Not being sanctioned does not automatically confer the privilege of an invitation,” the organization stressed.
The CAS ruling, however, puts Russia back on top of the overall medal count for the 2014 Sochi Games. The IOC still has to approve the decision regarding the medals.
Originally Russia topped the overall medal table in Sochi with 13 gold, 11 silver and nine bronze medals, while Norway finished second with 11 gold, five silver and 10 bronze medals, followed by Canada and the US.
The host nation of 2014 Olympics lost first place after it was stripped of number of medals by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), over alleged doping manipulations. These, however, were not proven.
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Following the CAS decision on Thursday, Russia now stands 11 gold, nine silver and nine bronze medals. Cross-country skier Alexander Legkov and a skeleton competitor Aleksandr Tretiakov regained their gold medals, while another cross-country skier, Maxim Vylegzhanin, had his three silver medals reinstated.
Luger Albert Demchenko received two bronze medals, while speed-skater Olga Fatkulina and skeleton racer Elena Nikitina added two more medals to the overall 2014 medal count for Russia.