LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The International Olympic Committee has mistakenly invited a banned Russian athlete to the Pyeongchang Games as a coach.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The International Olympic Committee has mistakenly invited a banned Russian athlete to the Pyeongchang Games as a coach.
The IOC said Wednesday it has canceled the invitation for Sergei Chudinov, who was banned from the Olympics for life in November when the IOC’s disciplinary commission ruled he was part of a Russian doping scheme at the 2014 Sochi Games.
Chudinov was fifth in the men’s skeleton in Sochi and later became a coach for the Russian national skeleton team.
He would have been the only skeleton coach for the Russians, who will compete as “Olympic Athletes from Russia” under the Olympic flag in Pyeongchang as part of the IOC’s sanctions for doping.
“Sergei Chudinov had been included on the OAR invitation list as a coach for Pyeongchang 2018 despite having been sanctioned as an athlete by the IOC disciplinary commission,” the IOC said. “He has since been declared ineligible for an invitation to be part of the OAR group in any capacity.”
The IOC blamed the Russian Olympic Committee for proposing him despite his ban.
