Olympics: It's wrong Russian athletes are guilty until proven innocent

A dangerous precedent has been established in international sport policy

Just hours before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, a group of 47 Russian athletes who had hoped to compete in South Korea, were denied the chance to do so when their appeal was turned down the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

In December 2017, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned Russian athletes from competing because of alleged systematic manipulation of the anti-doping system in the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

The IOC made provision for individual Russian athletes who could prove their innocence – by providing evidence from independent testing – to participate