December 22, 2017 – Cross-country skiers Nikita Kriukov and Alexander Bessmertnykh, both silver medalists at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, along with and Natalia Matveeva are among 11 more Russian athletes banned for life by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reports Reuters. The decision is part of an IOC investigation into doping of Russian athletes at the Sochi 2014 Games. Earlier this month the IOC banned six other cross-country skiers and the made the unprecedented move of banning Russia from next year’s Pyeongchang Winter Olympics for what it called “unprecedented systematic manipulation” of the anti-doping system – read more here.