Russia is prohibited from using name, flag and anthem in the next two Olympics

Russia will not be able to use its name, flag and anthem in the next two Olympic Games or in any world championships for the next two years after a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The Lausanne-based court halved the four-year ban proposed last year by the World Anti-Doping Agency in a landmark case that accused Russia of tampering with a Moscow testing laboratory database by state order. The ruling also prevented Russia from submitting offers to host major sporting events for two years.

Russian athletes and teams will still be able to compete in next year’s Tokyo Olympics and 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, as well as world championships, including the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, if they are not involved in doping or conceal positive evidence.

A victory for Russia is the name of the proposed team at major events. The name “Russia” can be retained on uniforms if the words “neutral athlete” or equivalents such as “neutral team” are of equal importance, the court said.

The burden of proof also shifted from Russian athletes and more to WADA when it comes to having their doping history examined to be selected for the Olympics or other sporting events.

Russian athletes and teams can also retain the national flag colors of red, white and blue on their uniforms at important events. That was not possible for the Russians in the last two track world championships.

Even with those concessions, the three court judges imposed the harshest sanctions on Russia since allegations of doping and state-backed cover-ups emerged after the Sochi 2014 Olympics.

WADA President Witold Bańka praised the court’s decision even though the ban was reduced to two years.

“The (CAS) panel has clearly confirmed our findings that Russian authorities blatantly and illegally manipulated Moscow Laboratory data in an effort to cover up an institutionalized doping scheme,” Bańka said in a statement.

The case centered on allegations that Russian state agencies tampered with and removed parts of the database before turning it over to WADA investigators last year. It contained probable evidence to prosecute long-standing doping violations.

The CAS process was formally between WADA and the Russian anti-doping agency, which refused to accept last year’s four-year ban. The Russian agency, known as Rusada, was declared in default last year, a decision confirmed Thursday by all three judges.

Rusada was also ordered to pay $ 1.27 million to WADA.

The 186-page ruling by the judges is expected to be published in the coming weeks.

The Russian agency can appeal the sanctions to the Swiss Supreme Court in Lausanne.

When a four-day hearing was held in Lausanne last month, Russian athletes and their lawyers participated as third parties arguing that they should not be punished for misconduct by state officials who do not work in sports.

Giving WADA the lab’s database before the December 2018 deadline was a key condition for Rusada being reinstated three months earlier, when a previous ban from the anti-doping community was lifted.

Researchers at the AMA in Moscow finally obtained the data a month late. Evidence from doping tests and emails appeared to have been deleted or changed, and the whistleblowers were implicated.

The ruling allows Russian government officials, including President Vladimir Putin, to attend major sporting events if invited by the host nation’s head of state.

WADA investigators went to Moscow two years ago to compile the database and begin verifying the evidence that would help the sport’s governing bodies prosecute alleged doping violations dating back several years.

Although Russia would be stripped of hosting world championships in the next two years, the events may be suspended. Governing bodies have been advised to seek a new host “unless it is legally or virtually impossible to do so.”