The former director of the Sports Training Center for Russian National Teams (TSSP) and the president of the Russian Biathlon Union (SBR), Alexander Kravtsov, was sentenced to seven years in prison in an embezzlement case, but he will appeal the verdict, said lawyer Vadim Myasnikov.

Kravtsov was arrested in September 2020. According to investigators, in the period from May 2014 to July 2017, he hired several people for different positions at the Center for Social Security, but the employees, while receiving wages, did not actually work. The amount of damage from Kravtsov’s actions is estimated at 14.45 million rubles. The prosecutor’s office requested 10 years in prison and a fine for Kravtsov. The verdict was announced on Thursday in the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow.

— Kravtsov was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for seven years in a general regime colony, five of which he had already served. The accomplices received suspended sentences ranging from 2.5 to 4 years. We will file a short appeal within the prescribed time frame. After preparing the full text of the verdict, we will file a full appeal, we have 10 days to do this.

— Are there still chances to change Kravtsov’s sentence?

– We are absolutely sure of this. The event of the crime itself is missing, and even the action that the prosecutor’s office considers proven is incorrectly classified,” Match TV quoted Myasnikov as saying.

Kravtsov headed the TsSP from 2009 to 2020, and was president of the SBR from 2014 to 2018.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) plans to publish a decision in the case of Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva by February 12, 2024, according to the website of the International Skating Union (ISU).

Hearings on the doping case of 17-year-old Valieva ended at CAS in mid-November. It was previously reported that the court intends to render a verdict at the end of January 2024.

“CAS plans to publish a decision regarding the proceedings involving the ISU, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) and Valieva no later than February 12, 2024,” the statement said.

Valieva at the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing helped the Russian team win gold in the team competition. Before the personal tournament, it became known that the banned drug trimetazidine was found in the doping test of the figure skater from the Russian Championship. CAS admitted the Russian to the individual competitions of the Games, where she took fourth place. The award ceremony for the Olympic medalists of the team tournament has not yet taken place.

The President of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) Stanislav Pozdnyakov called the decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to approve the change of citizenship of three Russian athletes lawless and arbitrary.

On Wednesday, the IOC approved the change of sports citizenship of Greco-Roman wrestler Georgiy Tibilov, cyclist Valeria Lyubimova and cyclist Mikhail Yakovlev without the approval of the ROC and without the standard three-year quarantine.

“It is impossible to call such actions and the decisions that precede them other than arbitrariness and lawlessness. After blatant violations of the Olympic Charter, the rights of athletes and human rights, and discrimination on the basis of nationality took place on the outer perimeter without any consequences for the IOC, it is clear that some colleagues from Lausanne are not going to stop at the “successes achieved.”

Yesterday we witnessed another chapter of the farce – a disconcerting abuse of power with the appropriation of the power to apply “special rules” and at its own discretion to resolve issues related to the direct and exclusive jurisdiction of the National Olympic Committee. In this case, the question concerns the change of sports citizenship. Now – OCD, who will be next?!

The Executive Committee of the Russian Olympic Committee did not give consent to the transfer of natives of Russia mentioned in the IOC statement to the jurisdiction of other NOCs. We consider it unacceptable to indulge arbitrariness and selectivity in the interpretation of the Olympic Charter. Just think about it! An individual sports organization has been brought to the point where it arrogates to itself the right, going beyond its own jurisdiction, to impose sanctions against sovereign states. At the same time, without having any formal status, or even individual characteristics of a subject of the system of international relations.

The goals and objectives of those same elements are unchanged – to cause maximum damage to Russian sports – professional, personnel, financial, reputational. Moreover, it was precisely through the hands of functionaries of the once leading international organizations in the industry.

Meanwhile, forced or voluntarily obedient performers are already going to great lengths to somehow reinforce and justify their actions, with which they continue to destroy true Olympism, turning the sport entrusted to them into a weapon of political blackmail and corporate enrichment.

Just as in the case of the temporary suspension of the ROC under a far-fetched pretext with another mockery of the Olympic Charter, we will demand legally reasoned explanations and defend our rights in accordance with established procedures,” Pozdnyakov wrote in the Telegram channel.

The IOC suspended the membership of the ROC in October due to the inclusion of the Olympic Councils of the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions into the ROC. It was reported that the IOC reserves the right to decide on the admission of individual Russian athletes to the 2024 Olympics in Paris and the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in a neutral status.