OREANDA-NEWS. The International Biathlon Union (IBU) will consult with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other sports federations in order to use a unified approach to resolving the issue of admitting Russian biathletes to participate in the World Championships. This was reported to TASS by the IBU.

Russian athletes were deprived of the right to play under the flag of the country at the World Championships and the Olympic Games for two years after the corresponding decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which was adopted last week. The sanctions of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will also apply to the Biathlon World Championship, which will be held next February in Pokljuka, Slovenia.

It is recalled that the sanctions were imposed for providing WADA with distorted data from the Moscow laboratory database (LIMS), which contains the results of doping tests of Russian athletes for the period from 2012 to 2015. The Russian authorities have denied allegations of database manipulation.

WADA insisted on four-year sanctions, but the court partially took into account the arguments of the Russian side. Also, Russian athletes were allowed to apply the colors of the national flag and the name of the country to their equipment. The right to form the line-ups of teams for the World Championships and the Olympic Games is reserved for the All-Russian Sports Federations and the Russian Olympic Committee.