Russia retracts CAS appeal against International Weightlifting Federation

Moscow, Jan 27 (IANS) The Russian Weightlifting Federation (RWF) has decided to withdraw its last year's lawsuit with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).

The lawsuit was submitted by Russia's weightlifting governing body in the wake of last year's decision of the IWF to suspend the membership of all national federations, which had more than three athletes with positive doping tests after reanalysis of their samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games, reports Tass.

The IWF announced on July 29, 2016, its decision to ban the whole Russian weightlifting team from the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro, due to confirmed Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) in reanalysed doping samples of seven Russian athletes from the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, hosted by Beijing and London, respectively.

Besides Russia, the world's governing body of weightlifting sports also suspended for one year the relevant national federations of Belarus and Kazakhstan. The three national weightlifting federations filed appeals with the Swiss-based court against the IWF ruling.

The IOC (International Olympic Committee) Executive Board convened a special session last year on May 17, discussing efforts to step up the fight against drug cheats and taking measures to protect clean athletes ahead of the Olympics in Rio.

As part of its anti-doping efforts, IOC ordered reanalysis of doping samples of athletes from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and 2012 Olympics in London.

Following two rounds of re-testing, 98 Olympians were reported to test positive for banned substances - 60 from the 2008 Games and 38 from the 2012 Games. Among them were over 25 medallists from both Olympics.