December 28, 2016 – Alexander Legkov and Yevgeny Belov plan to appeal their temporary doping suspensions in hopes of participating in the upcoming Tour de Ski, Dec. 31-Jan. 8, reports TASS, a Russian news agency.

Legkov and Belov were among six Russian cross-country skiers temporarily suspended from competition recently including Maxim Vylegzhanin and Alexei Petukhov, Evgenia Shapovalova and Julia Ivanova. Shapovalova and Ivanova had previously confirmed their suspensions but the others had not yet been officially revealed – read more here.

All of this follows the World Anti-Doping Agency’s second edition of the McLaren Report that outlined systemic doping in Russian sports. Neither Legkov nor Belov’s names appear on the 2017 Tour de Ski start list for Russia which includes Sergey Ustiugov, Alexander Bessmertnykh, Andrey Larkov, Andrey Melnichenko, Petr Sedov, Ermil Vokuev, and Alexey Chervotkin. SkiTrax believes that this appeal will take place at the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration in Sport (CAS).

Read the TASS report here.