The cross-country ski teams appears to have won a new medal from the Salt Lake City Olympics today after the Court of Arbitration for Sport turned down Lazutina and Danilova's appeal of their disqualification from the 30k at the 2002 Olympics, and Lazutina's appeal for being disqualified from competing in the 2002 Olympics due to a positive drug test in December 2001.

This ruling will officially annul the results of Lazutina >from the 2002 Games, including her Gold medal performance in the pursuit, and as a result Beckie Scott will move into the Silver medal position. Beckie will be only the second North American (after the 1976 silver medal result of US skier Bill Koch) to have won a silver medal at the Olympic Games in cross country skiing. It appears that this will require formal approval of the IOC Executive Board, which should in effect be a mere formality at their next meeting.

The decision also takes away the results of Lazutina from the other events and confirms that Danilova's disqualification in the 30k is upheld.

There still remains the Canadian and Norwegian Olympic Committee's appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, regarding the IOC's decision not to annul all of the results of Danilova (and Muhlegg) at the Games, due to a clause in the IOC charter that basically states that athletes “bringing the games into disrepute” should lose any results or awards achieved during the event. The Canadian and Norwegian opinion on this issue is that by doping in the 30k Danilova, Muehlegg and Lazutina brought the games into disrepute and should relinquish any awards obtained at the games. If successfull this would have broad implications to many medallists and from a Canadian perspective, would result in the removal Danilova's medal, now Gold, and award it to Beckie Scott the rightful winner. This appeal and hearing is expected to be heard later in December or early January. Once a decision is made on that appeal it is expected the IOC will redistribute the appropriate medals to the appropriate athletes and a formal recognition of Beckie's achievement will be made.

There appears to be favourable international opinion regarding a decision to remove all medals >from all events from an athlete caught doping at an event such as the Olympics. The WADA Antidoping Code, an international antidoping standard now being developed and receiving strong international support utilizes this concept in it's list of sanctions that have made draft #2 of the Code.

So it appears that Beckie is now going to be the Salt Lake City Pursuit Silver Medallist for sure and a decision on the Gold medal will be finalized over the next month or so. Congrats Beckie!