IOC hands life ban to three Russian bobsledders

Beijing, Nov 30 : The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has banned three Russian bobsledders from all the Olympic Games from the 2014 winter edition for doping rule violations, the IOC announced on its official website.

Alexandr Kas'yanov, Aleksei Pushkarev and Ilvir Khuzin have been sanctioned "in the context of the Sochi 2014 forensic and analytical doping investigations", the IOC said in a statement, Xinhua news agency reported.

The three athletes "are declared ineligible to be accredited in any capacity for all editions of the Games of the Olympiad and the Olympic Winter Games subsequent to the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014," it said in the statement.

None of the three athletes won medals, with all three in the four-man bob that finished fourth, and Kas'yanov also a member of the two-man team that came fourth.