Vancouver Olympics medals set to change hands 15 years later

Article content

More than 15 years since the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, medals are set to change hands.

One of the longest-running doping disputes in sports history seemed to have finally reached a conclusion on Wednesday when Switzerland’s top court rejected appeals by Russia’s Evgeny Ustyugov in cases affecting biathlon medals from the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia.

The Biathlon Integrity Unit, the sport’s anti-doping body, said the Swiss Federal Tribunal turned down Ustyugov’s appeals in doping cases, upholding a ruling last year from the Court of Arbitration for Sport. CAS confirmed both federal appeals were dismissed.

“While we regret the time it has taken to reach this point, the ruling reinforces the principle that doping violations will be identified and sanctioned, however complex the process may be,” BIU head Greg McKenna said in a statement.

It’s now up to the International Olympic Committee to formally reallocate Ustyugov’s medals — a gold and a bronze from 2010 and a relay gold from 2014 — to other athletes.

Among those in line to benefit is France’s Martin Fourcade. He’s one of biathlon’s all-time greats and an IOC member since 2022, and crossed the line second to Ustyugov in the 15-kilometer mass start event in 2010.

The cases facing Ustyugov were based on data from the Moscow anti-doping lab at the center of a cover-up scandal and on “abnormalities” in his medical data, the BIU said. The Swiss ruling likely brings an end to legal battles which have dragged on for years. Ustyugov himself has not competed since 2014.