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The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Monday rejected an appeal by the Uzbekistan Swimming Federation against FINA’s nullification of times at two meets in the country due to time tampering.
The decision covers swims at the Uzbekistan Open Swimming Cup last November and the Uzbekistan Open Swimming Championships in April in Tashkent. At the latter meet, times were manipulated by the Uzbekistan Swimming Federation to attain Olympic A and B cuts for its swimmers. One member of the visiting Indian delegation, Likith Prema, protested about the malfeasance he saw at the meet, then went public with the story upon his return to India and triggered a FINA investigation.
In late June, FINA took action ahead of the cut-off for Olympic qualification times but nullifying the results at the suspect meets.
From a statement by FINA:
The FINA Executive’s decision was made after receiving evidence establishing that certain results from these two events had been manipulated by the Uzbekistan Swimming Federation in an attempt to qualify Uzbek swimmers for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Following this CAS award, the FINA Ethics Panel will now investigate whether further sanctions should be imposed on the Uzbekistan Swimming Federation and any other implicated party.
Among the times in question, which had been removed from FINA’s rankings, are A cuts in the 100 freestyle for Aleksey Tarasenko and in the 100 butterfly for Adilbek Yusupboev and Eldor Usmonov. Times from last November’s Uzbekistan Cup, including the Olympic A cut of Kyrgyzstan’s Denis Petrashov in the men’s 100 breast, remain in FINA’s rankings, though it’s Petrashov’s fastest time by a full second. (Petrashov would likely compete in Tokyo as a Universality swimmer anyway.) Czech swimmer Kristyna Horska’s time of 2:25.24 from the Uzbekistan Cup, one of the other times flagged by sources as suspicious, likewise remains in the database. FINA’s statement does not directly implicate any of the swimmers in the wrongdoing.
Prema also alleged that Uzbekistan swim officials attempted to tamper with times for the Indian swimmers to buy their silence, including manufacturing an A cut for Sajan Prakash. Prakash would later become the first Indian man to attain an Olympic A cut.
FINA’s release concludes with mention that it “would also like to thank the whistleblowers for their courage in reporting this nefarious behaviour.”
