Evgeny Ustyugov to lose 2nd Olympic medal over doping charges

Evgeny Ustyugov to lose 2nd Olympic medal over doping charges
Evgeny Ustyugov

The Biathlon Integrity Unit (IBU) announced on Tuesday, that Russian biathlete Evgeny Ustyugov has been suspended a second time under doping charges. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has yet to publish a ruling.

Ustyugov had earlier this year, been stripped off of his gold medal won in the 2014 Sochi Olympics. That ruling is still awaiting an appeal at CAS.

He now stands to lose the 15 kilometre mass start gold medal he won in Vancouver 2010 and his relay bronze from the same year.

According to IBU, the anti-doping panel of CAS ruled against the Russian athlete based on the blood data collected from his biological passport program to detect the effects of doping.

The BIU said the panel, “found that Mr. Ustyugov had the benefit of protection and support to artificially augment his performance through doping and to avoid detection, which could not have been achieved other than with a significant degree of orchestration or common enterprise.”

However, Ustyugov had countered that he has higher than normal levels of oxygen-carrying pigment hemoglobin in his blood due to genetic reasons.

Evgeny Ustyugov has 21 days to appeal

Evgeny Ustyugov

The biathelte’s lawyer, Alexei Panitch quoted to a Russian news agency TASS, that the decision was “simply ridiculous“.

“The anti-doping chamber of CAS has no jurisdiction to examine this case because Evgeny has never accepted the existence of the competences of this institution,” Panitch said. He also claimed that CAS has ignored the defense’s scientific analysis.

Panitch further said that the IBU statute of doping cases was only extended from eight to ten years in 2019. “This decision contains numerous violations of legal standards.” He said.

Evgeny Ustyugov now has 21 days to appeal, his lawyer Panitch has said that were going to appeal against the ruling which he called “laughable“. The CAS ruling is subject to confirmation from International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Also Read: World Champion Christian Coleman to miss Tokyo Olympics as AIU slaps 2-year ban