The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected the appeal of the Russian Olympic Committee, which contested its suspension decided in mid-October by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in connection with the conflict in Ukraine, announced the body based in Lausanne Friday February 23. The IOC thus intends to sanction the placement under the authority of the Russian body of sports organizations in the regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhia, located in eastern Ukraine and occupied by the Russian army, recalls the CAS in a press release. The court based in Lausanne also indicates that its decision is, at its level, “ final and binding » but that it can be appealed within 30 days to the Swiss Federal Court. On the eve of the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the CAS believes that the IOC ” did not undermine the principles of legality, equality, predictability and proportionality “. Meeting in Bombay on October 12 for its 141st session, the IOC had shaken up its agenda to react to the “ unilateral decision » taken a week earlier by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) to annex four Ukrainian sports organizations. “ The IOC is satisfied with the confirmation by the CAS of the decision of the IOC Executive Committee “, declared to AFP a spokesperson for the body, according to whom the annexation decided by the ROC ” constitutes an offense against the Olympic Charter because it violates the territorial integrity of the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee “. The Russian Olympic Committee seized the CAS on November 6.
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