An banned from Games

MOSCOW: Russia’s short track speed skating star Victor An has been banned from the Pyeongchang Winter Games, the Russian Olympic Committee confirmed on Tuesday, in the aftermath of a state-sponsored doping scandal.

Six-time Olympic gold medallist An — who was born in South Korea but took Russian citizenship before the 2014 Sochi Games — was “absent from the list of potential participants”, vice president of the ROC Stanislav Pozdnyakov said in a statement, confirming media reports from Monday.

Olympic champion biathlete Anton Shipulin and world champion skier Sergei Ustyugov were also absent from the list of athletes invited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the statement said.

The absent sportsmen have “never been implicated in any type of doping affair and the numerous tests they have passed in their careers show that they are clean athletes”, Pozdnyakov said.

“Today we will send the International Olympic Committee a request for the specific reasons why the captains of Russian teams in various sports have not been included in the list of potential participants.”

The ROC said it did not see this as a final decision, but An’s lawyer told media on Monday there would not be time to appeal before the Games.President of the Russian Skating Union Alexei Kravtsov said he was “outraged by the unjust decision” to bar the top athletes.

“By acting like this, the IOC can be compared to a despot and a tyrant, trampling on laws and deciding people’s fate simply according to its whims,” he said in a statement.“It is clear that we do not really have time to do anything before the Olympics, but we intend to continue the fight to clear the names of our athletes,” he added.