Russian bob pilot Nadezhda Sergeyeva has been banned from the Olympic Winter Games because of doping. This was explained by the Anti-Doping Panel of the International Sports Court CAS in Pyeongchang.
Sergeyeva was found guilty of doping abuse with the stimulant trimetazidin. The 30-year-old admitted the violation. Sergeyeva and Anastasia Kotscherschowa (30) finished twelfth in the two-man competition together with Anastasia Kotscherschowa.
In Pyeongchang it is the fourth doping case, two of which concern athletes of “Olympic athletes from Russia”. Before Sergeyeva, Russian curler Alexander Kruschelnitsky had been caught with melon. Also affected were the Japanese short-tracker Kei Saito, who had used a forbidden diuretic, and the Slovenian hockey player Ziga Jeglic, who had been proven to have taken a forbidden asthma medication.
On Saturday evening, the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee will meet to discuss whether the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee ROC will be lifted and whether Russia will be allowed to participate under its own flag in the closing ceremony on Sunday. Whether the second Russian doping case in Pyeongchang is already an exclusion criterion for the IOC is unclear.