The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said on Friday that it had dismissed 47 appeals from Russian athletes and coaches to participate in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, which opens later in the day.

The Russians had appealed their exclusion from the Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over the doping scandal from the 2014 Sochi Games.

“In its decisions, the CAS arbitrators have considered that the process created by the IOC to establish an invitation list of Russian athletes to compete as Olympic athletes from Russia (OAR) could not be described as a sanction but rather as an eligibility decision,’’ it said in a statement.

The IOC in December banned Russia from the Games over doping in the country that included massive manipulation of doping samples at the Sochi Olympics and more than 1,000 athletes across several sports.

It invited 169 carefully screened Russian athletes to compete as neutrals under the Olympic flag. It had also suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).

“Although the ROC was suspended, the IOC nevertheless chose to offer individual athletes the opportunity to participate in the winter Games under prescribed conditions.

“The conditions were processes designed to balance the IOC’s interest in the global fight against doping and the interests of individual athletes from Russia.’’

The Games begin later on Friday to end February 25.

(Reuters/NAN)