Twenty-two Russian athletes who were given lifetime bans by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for doping have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the court announced on Wednesday.
The IOC barred the Russian Olympic team on Tuesday from competing in the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea over allegations of a state-sponsored doping scheme. In the month before the verdict, lifetime bans were handed out to more than 20 individual Russian athletes.
“They will do everything possible for our country to go to the Olympics with a third or fourth-tier line-up,” bobsledder Aleksandr Zubkov was cited by Reuters as saying after he received his lifetime ban in November.
Twenty-two of the athletes given lifetime bans have now filed appeals to the CAS. They include biathletes, bobsledders, cross-country skiers, speed skaters and skeleton competitors, the court announced in a press release.
"The athletes have requested that the CAS issue its final awards before the beginning of the Olympic Winter Games 2018," the statement said.
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