Russian skiers and bobsledders will not hand back their Olympic medals, as stated by Elena Vyalbe, the President of the Cross Country Ski Federation of Russia. The athletes intend to fight for their medals in court. Their lawyers will also try to get the biggest pseudo whistle-blowers, Grigory Rodchenkov and Richard McLaren, to testify at the hearing.
Daniil Mokhalin has found out some more about the strategy of the defense.
The most important people at this conference on the decision of the Oswald Commission to strip our athletes of their medals were not the heads of the sports federations, Aleksander Zubkov or Elena Vyalbe, but lawyers, in particular, Philip Birch who can explain the legal side of this issue. Turns out that the lawyer representing our athletes, Philip Birch, has been on the case since last spring but the plaintiff, the IOC, has been showing unprecedented behavior, blatantly violating the athletes' rights. The lawyer said that he's never had to work on such a case.
Philip Birch, Lawyer: "Russian athletes had their rights violated. They have a right to speak yet they only found out about the hearing 3 days before it, even though the investigation has been in progress for 10 months. The athletes had only 3 days to prepare and study hundreds of pages".
Birch also added that the IOC wasn't critical about the claims of WADA whistle-blower Grigory Rodchenkov and made a decision about the Russian athletes in advance. Nobody checked the validity of those claims and Rodchenkov himself wasn't present at the hearing even via video communications.
Philip Birch, Lawyer: "It seems to me that the IOC took his claims at face value and never tried to critically evaluate his claims. We also believe that it was inadmissible because the IOC had already made their decision in advance".
Moreover, The New York Times has published what seems to be excerpts from a Rodchenkov's diary. They feature photos of some notes about meetings and conversations that took place in 2014 and 2015. These notes have mentions of Vitaly Mutko and his then-deputy Irina Rodionova. According to Rodchenkov, both of them were involved in the swap-out of test samples. The International Olympic Committee believes this diary to be authentic.
Aleksander Zubkov, President of the Bobsleigh Federation of Russia: "There's only one conclusion to be made— they want to eliminate our national team leaders who are practicing athletes, capable of earning medals at the Olympics in Pyeongchang. And they will try to have us use our reserves instead".
On December 5, the IOC meeting in Lausanne will decide whether Russia's national team will be allowed to the Winter Olympics in South Korea.
Daniil Mokhalin, Igor Belogorov, Anton Zagorsky, Umar Tuskaev. Vesti.
