Cross-country skiing: Mutko criticizes Legkow blockade

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Vitali Mutko has criticized the ban on cross-country skiing Olympic champion Alexander Legkov and his team-mate Yevgeny Belov. The decision is “alarming and astonishing”, said the former sports minister to the news agency TASS. Both athletes would now be “given all the support they need.”

The International Olympic Committee has suspended Legkov and Belov on Wednesday because of doping at the Winter Games in Sochi for life in all functions for Olympia. Mutko explicitly defended Legkov:”An athlete who has been active for many years, has gained great respect and has never been tested positively is now completely defenceless,”he said.

Mutko recommended that both athletes go to the CAS International Sports Court. This is the “correct and most natural reaction” to the verdict, he said.