LAUSANNE (REUTERS, AFP) - The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has said it will hear banned track coach Alberto Salazar's appeal to overturn his four-year doping suspension in November.
American Salazar, who coached some of the world's top distance runners including British Olympic and world champion Mo Farah, was banned by the US Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) in October for "orchestrating and facilitating" doping as head coach of the Nike Oregon Project (NOP).
Swiss-based CAS, the world's highest sports court, said on Tuesday (June 2) it would hear appeals from Salazar and endocrinologist Jeffrey Brown between Nov 8-16.
Brown, who worked for NOP on performance enhancement and served as a physician for numerous athletes in the training programme, was also banned by Usada for four years.
Nike Inc, which funds NOP - an elite long-distance running training centre in Portland under a long-term sponsorship deal with US Track and Field - has previously said it would support Salazar's bid to clear his name.
No NOP runner was directly implicated in doping by Usada.
Salazar won three consecutive New York marathons from 1980 before coaching a slew of Olympians, including Farah, who won the 5,000m and 10,000m golds at the London and Rio Olympics before splitting with the American in 2017.
Farah has never failed a drugs test and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Similarly, the appeal by Russia's anti-doping agency against a four-year doping ban from international sport has also been postponed to November, a CAS official told AFP on Tuesday.
Originally scheduled for July, the appeal, which pits Rusada against the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), will be held between Nov 2-5.
It will take place behind closed doors at an as yet unconfirmed location, despite Wada's insistence that it be public.
The ban was handed to Russia in December by Wada, who ruled that Rusada had given it manipulated laboratory data.
In January, the head of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, said that the IOC and international federations needed a CAS ruling that "does not leave any room for interpretation".
Should Wada's ruling be confirmed, Russia will miss out on the postponed Tokyo Olympics, the 2022 winter Games in Beijing and that year's World Cup in Qatar.
The sanctions wouldn't stop Russian athletes from taking part in competitions, but they would have to compete under a neutral flag and with no national anthem.
