The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says it has banned 11 Russian athletes for life for doping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.
Speed skaters Ivan Skobrev and Artem Kuznetcov; lugers Tatyana Ivanova and Albert Demchenko,; cross-country skiers Nikita Kryukov, Aleksandr Bessmertnykh, and Natalya Matveyeva; bobsledders Lyudmila Udobkina and Maksim Belugin; and ice-hockey players Tatyana Burina and Anna Shchukina were disqualified from the events they took part in, the IOC said in a statement released on December 22.
The athletes were also stripped of their medals and banned from future Olympic events, the IOC Disciplinary Commission said.
"The 11 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," the ICO said.
The announcement comes following hearings by an IOC commission into allegations of state-sponsored doping by hosts Russia at the 2014 Winter Games.
