Sports lawyer Anna Antseliovich told that the Swiss Federal Court (TSF) may consider the Russian biathlete’s case. Evgenia Ustyugova solely on the violation of procedural rules during the proceedings before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and not on the merits.
On Tuesday, the press service of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) announced that Ustyugov would be stripped of his 2010 Olympic gold medal after an appeal to the CAS in the biological passport case was rejected.
— I cannot assess Ustyugov’s chances, because the Swiss court is not examining the merits of the case. The review is conducted to determine whether there were procedural violations that prevented the arbitrators from making a particular decision. This is not known to many people, except those who participated in the CAS hearings.
— Are only violations of procedural rules taken into account?
— Not all violations can affect the annulment of a CAS decision. Only those who could influence the outcome: the arbitrator was not impartial, biased and did not allow the party’s witness to be heard. Generally, if this is found, the decision is overturned.
— It is said that foreign lawyers are not very willing to take on such cases.
“The problem here is related to the athlete’s biological passport, questions about blood. These are difficult cases. There is indirect evidence of guilt, no direct evidence in the form of tests, after which the athlete must explain how the banned substance entered his body. There are biological deviations in the indicators, there is a battle between experts, doctors, hematologists and those who find out the details of the deviations. And yes, lawyers don’t particularly like these kinds of cases, because they are really complicated,” Antseliovich told .
Ustyugov can appeal this decision to the SFT. However, the IBU statement notes that such appeals are only permitted for narrow procedural reasons.
Previously, Ustyugov was also deprived of the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Sochi.
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Source : MatchTV
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