Russian athletics before CAS again: new appeal seeks lifting of World Athletics sanctions
The Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) has opened a new legal front against World Athletics by filing an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) challenging sanctions that restrict its participation in the international governance of athletics. On 10 August 2026, RusAF announced that its goal was not only to secure the return of Russian athletes to international competitions but also to lift measures affecting the federation itself, its officials, judges, coaches and other specialists. According to the Russian federation's statement, the existing restrictions prevent it from sending representatives to World Athletics bodies, participating in meetings and votes, and involving professional staff in international conferences, seminars and professional development programmes. This means that the dispute, which until now has largely been associated in public with athletes' right to compete, is expanding to encompass the governance and institutional rights of the national federation. World Athletics told Reuters that it would vigorously defend its position in the arbitration proceedings.
The new case is the second proceeding initiated by RusAF before CAS during the summer of 2026. The first appeal was filed on 9 July, after the World Athletics Council on 3 July again confirmed the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes, officials and support personnel from international competitions. At the time, the Russian federation announced that it was challenging the decision to continue the ban on participation and that it had filed the appeal within the deadline prescribed by World Athletics rules. The second proceeding now covers a broader package of restrictions that RusAF considers an obstacle to the federation's normal operations and the international representation of Russian athletics. However, the outcome of neither of those two proceedings has been made public, nor had CAS issued a final decision on the merits of the dispute by 13 August 2026.
The second appeal is not limited to athletes' participation
In its latest statement, RusAF claims that the sanctions have a direct impact on the organisation's day-to-day functioning. According to the federation, Russian representatives do not participate in the international federation's working bodies where rules and strategic decisions are prepared, and RusAF also states that it has no opportunity to participate in meetings and votes of the World Athletics Council. Russian coaches and other experts, according to the same statement, cannot attend international coaching conferences, seminars and specialised professional events. The federation also claims that international professional development programmes are unavailable to Russian judges and that they cannot renew existing or obtain new international judging categories. These institutional restrictions are precisely at the centre of the second appeal to CAS.
RusAF Executive Director Boris Yarishevsky described the sanctions as unprecedented and claimed that no other sports federation faces such severe restrictions. According to him, the measures not only make the federation's work more difficult but also slow the development of athletics in Russia, particularly among younger athletes. In its statement, RusAF describes the measures as selective and politicised and announces further legal action. These claims form part of the Russian side's arguments and do not constitute findings by CAS. World Athletics, on the other hand, justifies the sanctions by reference to the war against Ukraine, the protection of the integrity of international competitions and the consequences the war has had for Ukrainian athletes and sports infrastructure.
World Athletics reaffirmed the ban on 3 July
The World Athletics Council discussed the status of Russia and Belarus at a meeting held by video conference on 1 and 2 July 2026. In an official statement published on 3 July, the international federation said that the Council had been presented with several options for a possible modification of the sanctions introduced after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, but the existing decision was ultimately confirmed. It includes the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes, officials and support personnel from international competitions under the jurisdiction of World Athletics. The organisation also recalled that it had reviewed and reaffirmed the same policy during 2023 and 2025, and discussed it again in March 2026.
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said after the July meeting that the working group responsible for the status of Russians and Belarusians had considered a conditional pathway for their return to international competitions. According to his explanation, the Council had not seen tangible progress toward peace negotiations that would justify changing the existing policy. World Athletics also said that, when making its decision, it considered the consequences of the war for Ukrainian athletics, including difficulties in regularly holding domestic competitions, opportunities to achieve qualifying standards and world-ranking points, and damage to sports infrastructure. Since 2022, the organisation has maintained a special fund to support Ukrainian athletics and stresses that training and competition conditions for Ukrainian athletes remain seriously disrupted. This reasoning shows that World Athletics treats the current restrictions separately from Russia's former anti-doping case.
Two different stories: the doping suspension and sanctions because of the war
Distinguishing between these two regimes is crucial to understanding the current dispute. RusAF was suspended from membership of the international federation back in 2015 after the discovery of systemic problems and violations of anti-doping rules in Russian athletics. During that period, individual Russian athletes were able, under prescribed conditions, to obtain Authorised Neutral Athlete status and compete without national symbols. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, World Athletics introduced separate measures excluding Russian and Belarusian athletes and support personnel from its international competitions, meaning that the previous neutral mechanism no longer enabled Russian athletes to return to the biggest stage.
In March 2023, the World Athletics Council concluded that RusAF had fulfilled the anti-doping conditions for reinstatement after a multi-year suspension. However, at the same time, it explicitly retained the sanctions related to the war in Ukraine. Among the measures, World Athletics then listed a ban on hosting international and European athletics events in Russia and Belarus, denial of the right of representatives of their federations to attend, speak or vote at Congress, a ban on accreditation for World Athletics Series events, and the exclusion of national federation staff from official development and professional programmes. Athletes, support personnel and officials from Russia and Belarus remained excluded from World Athletics Series competitions.
That distinction was further emphasised in March 2026. According to World Athletics Council documents and a RusAF statement, the Athletics Integrity Unit concluded that the Russian federation had fulfilled all 34 strategic special conditions of the three-year monitoring programme established after its reinstatement in 2023. This brought to an end the special international monitoring related to governance reforms, integrity and the anti-doping system. Completion of that process nevertheless did not automatically remove the war-related sanctions because they are based on a separate decision of the World Athletics Council. It is precisely on this dividing line that RusAF is now building an important part of its public argument: it claims that it has fulfilled its sporting-governance and anti-doping obligations while its full international rights continue to be restricted for geopolitical reasons.
World Athletics' position differs from the IOC's more recent direction
The dispute is taking place at a time when the policy of part of international sport toward Russia is changing. On 7 July 2026, the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) provisionally lifted the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee that had been in force since 12 October 2023. The IOC explained that the Russian Olympic Committee no longer included among its members regional sports organisations from territories under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian Olympic Committee and that it had committed not to conduct activities there. In the same decision, the IOC announced that its previously recommended restrictions on the participation of Russian athletes and teams were no longer applicable, subject to compliance with the relevant anti-doping rules.
That decision, however, does not automatically mean the return of Russian athletes to World Athletics competitions. The IOC explicitly acknowledged that international sports federations had implemented its previous recommendations differently, ranging from full permission to compete to neutral status or complete exclusion. Each federation operates within the framework of its own statutes and rules, so World Athletics retained its policy even after the IOC changed its approach. In addition, the IOC said that it would decide at the appropriate time on protocol matters such as the Russian flag, anthem, colours and other national symbols at the Olympic Games. For athletics, therefore, what World Athletics decides remains decisive, as does CAS if the dispute reaches a final arbitration ruling.
The change in IOC policy nevertheless gives RusAF a broader international context for its claim that strict exclusion is becoming a less uniform standard in world sport. World Athletics can respond that IOC recommendations are not the same as the binding rules of an individual international federation and that the Council has developed its own reasoning linked to the integrity of competition and the consequences of the war for the Ukrainian sports system. This is also where one of the most important issues in the current dispute lies: how broad a discretion an international federation has in determining the conditions for participation by member federations, athletes and officials when the reasons for the restriction are not anti-doping or disciplinary in the classic sense, but arise from war and its impact on sport.
What RusAF is asking arbitration to do
The Russian federation has not published the full text of the new appeal or a detailed list of the legal grounds on which it bases its claim. The publicly available statement indicates that it wants the lifting of sanctions against the federation itself, restoration of the possibility of full international representation and, in a broader sense, the return of Russian athletes to the international stage. RusAF says it has engaged international lawyers specialising in sports law and CAS proceedings. In the first proceeding in July, the focus was on the decision to extend the exclusion of athletes from international competitions, while the August appeal is directed at restrictions on the federation's institutional rights and its professional staff. Consequently, the legal issues in the two cases will be partly related but are not completely identical.
CAS is an independent arbitration institution based in Lausanne that resolves disputes in international sport. The mere filing of an appeal or its procedural acceptance does not mean that the arbitration tribunal has accepted the applicant's arguments. In such proceedings, it is crucial to establish whether jurisdiction exists, whether the legal remedy was filed within the prescribed deadline, which provisions of the statutes and rules apply, and whether the challenged measures were adopted in accordance with the organisation's rules and the fundamental principles of sports law. Since the full submissions of the parties are not public, it is currently impossible to reliably assess which specific legal standards RusAF will invoke or how World Athletics will structure its defence beyond its publicly expressed intention to defend the challenged sanctions.
The ruling could have broader consequences for sports governance
The importance of the case goes beyond the question of whether Russian sprinters, jumpers, throwers or long-distance runners will be able to return to major international competitions. The second appeal directly raises the issue of a national federation's participation in decision-making, professional programmes and the international licensing system. If CAS examines the merits of those measures, it could consider the relationship between the autonomy of an international sports federation and the rights of one of its members, as well as the proportionality of sanctions that have lasted for several years. World Athletics, on the other hand, will be able to rely on its own Council decisions and its reasoning that the war has direct consequences for competition conditions, qualification opportunities and the infrastructure available to athletes from Ukraine. The final legal effect will depend on the wording of the claim, the rules applied by the arbitration panel and the facts presented by the parties.
For World Athletics, the CAS decision could also be important for the consistency of future policy toward states and federations affected by wars or other major international crises. For RusAF, the stakes are more immediate: restoration of access to international competitions, decision-making bodies, educational programmes and professional qualifications. For athletes, any change in the regime could affect their ability to achieve international results, rankings and qualification opportunities in the period leading up to the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. For now, however, there is no official decision easing the existing ban in athletics, and the change in IOC policy itself does not override World Athletics rules.
As of 13 August 2026, therefore, the World Athletics decision reaffirmed on 3 July remains in force: Russian and Belarusian athletes, officials and support personnel remain excluded from the international competition system, and the federations in the affected areas do not have the full rights they would enjoy under normal circumstances. RusAF has responded with two arbitration proceedings approximately one month apart and has announced further legal steps. The next key development will be the CAS decision on the Russian federation's appeals or a possible procedural ruling determining the scope of the dispute. Until that happens, one of the toughest bans imposed on Russian sport remains in force precisely in athletics.
Sources:
- Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) - statement of 10 August 2026 on the second appeal to CAS and restrictions affecting the federation, officials and experts (link)
- Reuters / The Star - report on RusAF's new appeal and World Athletics' response to the arbitration proceedings (link)
- World Athletics - decisions of the 241st Council meeting of 3 July 2026 on the continuation of sanctions against Russia and Belarus and the reasoning related to the war in Ukraine (link)
- Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) - statement of 9 July 2026 on the first appeal to CAS against the extension of the ban on Russian athletes competing (link)
- World Athletics - March 2023 decision on RusAF's reinstatement from its anti-doping suspension while retaining separate sanctions related to the war in Ukraine (link)
- World Athletics - Council documents from March 2026 on the completion of the three-year special conditions programme and RusAF's fulfilment of 34 strategic requirements (link)
- International Olympic Committee - decision of 7 July 2026 on the provisional lifting of the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee and the end of the applicability of previously recommended restrictions on Russian athletes (link)