Ruling in doping case set to give biathlon star Fourcade a gold 15 years after Vancouver Olympics

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Ruling in doping case set to give biathlon star Fourcade a gold 15 years after Vancouver Olympics

2024-11-26 21:00 Last Updated At：11-27 01:20

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Almost 15 years after the Vancouver Olympics, a ruling by sport's highest court in a Russian doping case is set to give French biathlon star Martin Fourcade another gold medal.

The International Biathlon Union said Tuesday that the Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed an appeal by Evgeny Ustyugov, who crossed the line first ahead of Fourcade in the 15-kilometer mass start event at the 2010 Winter Games.

The Russian biathlete had appealed against an October 2020 ruling by a CAS tribunal that he was guilty of blood doping detected in his biological passport.

The CAS appeal judges upheld the original verdict, which banned Ustyugov for four years and disqualified all his results from January 2010 through the end of the 2014 season. He also took a bronze medal with the Russian team in the men’s relay in Vancouver.

Though Ustyugov can pursue a further appeal to the Swiss supreme court on limited procedural grounds, the duty of reallocating the Vancouver medals could now go to the International Olympic Committee’s executive board.

Fourcade is set to be upgraded to gold, Pavol Hurajt of Slovakia should get silver and Christoph Sumann of Austria should move up to get bronze. After the IOC reallocates the medals, they could be presented at a ceremony during the 2026 Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo Olympics.

Fourcade’s silver in Vancouver was the first of seven medals in his storied Olympic career. He went on to win two golds at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games and three more in Pyeongchang in 2018, including the 15-kilometer mass start.

Fourcade has since moved on to Olympic politics. He was elected in 2022 to be an IOC member by fellow athletes, was part of the organizing committee of the 2024 Paris Olympics and is widely expected to have a big role in organizing the 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps and Nice.

The 39-year-old Ustyugov, who is now retired from racing, has ongoing legal challenges against doping sanctions, the IBU said Tuesday.

He has filed an appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal against a separate CAS judgment in February 2020 which disqualified his results at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

Ustyugov was part of the men’s relay team at their home Winter Games that won gold ahead of Germany, Austria and Norway. The IOC has been unable yet to reallocate those medals.

That doping case, the biathlon governing body said, was based on data recovered from the Moscow testing laboratory that was shuttered during the scandal of Russian state-backed doping at Sochi and other Olympics.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

Plane burst into flames after skidding off runway at an airport in South Korea, killing at least 174

2024-12-29 17:16 Last Updated At：17:20

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A passenger plane burst into flames Sunday after it skidded off a runway at a South Korean airport and slammed into a concrete fence when its front landing gear apparently failed to deploy, killing most of the 181 people on board, in one of the country’s worst aviation disasters.

The National Fire Agency said rescuers raced to pull people from the Jeju Air passenger plane at the airport in the town of Muan, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Seoul. The Transport Ministry said the plane was a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800 jet that was returning from Bangkok and that the crash happened at 9:03 a.m.

At least 174 people — 83 women, 80 men and 11 others whose genders weren’t immediately identifiable — died in the fire, the fire agency said. Emergency workers pulled two people, both crew members, to safety. Health officials said they are conscious and not in life-threatening condition.

The death toll is expected to rise further as the rest of the people aboard the plane remain missing about nine hours after the incident.

The fire agency deployed 32 fire trucks and several helicopters to contain the fire. About 1,560 firefighters, police officers, soldiers and other officials were also sent to the site, it said.

Footage of the crash aired by South Korean television channels showed the Jeju Air plane skidding across the airstrip at high speed, apparently with its landing gear still closed, overrunning the runway and colliding head-on with a concrete wall on the outskirts of the facility, triggering an explosion. Other local TV stations aired footage showing thick plumes of black smoke billowing from the plane, which was engulfed in flames.

Lee Jeong-hyeon, chief of the Muan fire station, told a televised briefing that the plane was completely destroyed, with only the tail assembly remaining recognizable among the wreckage. Lee said that workers were looking into various possibilities about what caused the crash, including whether the aircraft was struck by birds, Lee said.

Transport Ministry officials later said their early assessment of communication records show the airport control tower issued a bird strike warning to the plane shortly before it intended to land and gave its pilot permission to land in a different area. The pilot sent out a distress signal shortly before the plane went past the runway and skidded across a buffer zone before hitting the wall, the officials said.

Senior Transport Ministry official Joo Jong-wan said workers have retrieved the flight data and cockpit voice recorders of the plane’s black box, which will be examined by government experts investigating the cause of the crash and fire. Joo said the runway at the Muan airport will be closed until Jan. 1.

Emergency officials in Muan said the plane’s landing gear appeared to have malfunctioned.

The Transport Ministry said the plane’s passengers include two Thai nationals.

Thailand’s prime minister, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, expressed deep condolences to the families of those affected by the accident in a post on social platform X. Paetongtarn said she ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to provide assistance immediately.

Kerati Kijmanawat, the director of the Airports of Thailand, confirmed in a statement that Jeju Air flight 7C 2216 departed from Suvarnabhumi Airport with no reports of abnormal conditions with the aircraft or on the runway.

Jeju Air in a statement expressed its “deep apology” over the crash and said it will do its “utmost to manage the aftermath of the accident.”

In a televised news conference, Kim E-bae, Jeju Air’s president, deeply bowed with other senior company officials as he apologized to bereaved families and said he feels “full responsibility” for the incident. Kim said the company hadn’t identified any mechanical problems with the aircraft following regular checkups and that he would wait for the results of government investigations into the cause of the incident.

Family members wailed as officials announced the names of some victims at a lounge in the Muan airport.

Boeing said in a statement on X it was in contact with Jeju Air and is ready to support the company in dealing with the crash.

“We extend our deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones, and our thoughts remain with the passengers and crew,” Boeing said.

It’s one of the deadliest disasters in South Korea’s aviation history. The last time South Korea suffered a large-scale air disaster was in 1997, when a Korean Airline plane crashed in Guam, killing 228 people on board. In 2013, an Asiana Airlines plane crash-landed in San Francisco, killing three and injuring approximately 200.

Sunday’s accident was also one of the worst landing mishaps since a July 2007 crash that killed all 187 people on board and 12 others on the ground when an Airbus A320 slid off a slick airstrip in Sao Paulo and collided with a nearby building, according to data compiled by the Flight Safety Foundation, a nonprofit group aimed at improving air safety. In 2010, 158 people died when an Air India Express aircraft overshot a runway in Mangalore, India, and plummeted into a gorge before erupting into flames, according to the safety foundation.

The incident came as South Korea is embroiled into a huge political crisis triggered by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s stunning imposition of martial law and ensuing impeachment. Last Friday, South Korean lawmakers impeached acting President Han Duck-soo and suspended his duties, leading Deputy Prime Minister Choi Sang-mok to take over.

Choi ordered officials to employ all available resources to rescue the passengers and crew before he headed to Muan. Yoon’s office said his chief secretary, Chung Jin-suk, will preside over an emergency meeting between senior presidential staff later on Sunday to discuss the crash.

Associated Press journalists Bobby Caina Calvan in New York and Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul and Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok contributed to this report.