Swimming-CAS clears Russia's Kudashev, Andrusenko to compete at Games

By A Robin Rajkumar - July 19, 2021

Veronika Andrusenko of the Russian Olympic Committee

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissed cases against Russian swimmers Alexandr Kudashev and Veronika Andrusenko on Monday after they had been suspended for suspected anti-doping rule violations, clearing them to compete at the Tokyo Olympics.

Swimming's world governing body FINA provisionally suspended the pair last week based on evidence provided by the World Anti-Doping Agency stemming from its examination of materials recovered from the former Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory.

After an expedited hearing of the case ahead of the July 23-Aug. 8 Games, CAS said in a statement it had dismissed FINA's charges.

Sport's highest court added that FINA had not established during the proceedings that doping violations had occurred.

Kudashev, 25, is a gold medallist in the men's 200m butterfly at the 2019 World University Games and is set for his first Olympics. Andrusenko, 30, competed at the 2012 and 2016 Games.

Russian athletes are set to compete in Tokyo without their flag and anthem because of doping sanctions.

Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Rutherford