{"id":283007,"date":"2026-02-14T00:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T00:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/283007\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T00:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T00:23:10","slug":"winter-olympics-2026-cas-backs-ioc-in-ukraine-war-helmet-row-as-heraskevych-ban-upheld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/283007\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter Olympics 2026: CAS backs IOC in Ukraine war helmet row as Heraskevych ban upheld"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAS Secretary-General Matthieu Reeb told reporters after the hearing that the court had \u201cfound that freedom of expression is guaranteed at the Olympic Games, but not on the field of play, which is a sacred principle\u201d.<\/p>\n

Reeb added that Annett Rombach, the German arbitrator who examined the appeal, \u201cwished to state that she is fully sympathetic to Mr Heraskevych\u2019s commemoration and to his attempt to raise awareness for the grief and devastation suffered by the Ukrainian people, and Ukrainian athletes because of the war\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, she concluded that Heraskevych\u2019s helmet did violate the IOC\u2019s Athlete Expression Guidelines.<\/p>\n

The decision to disqualify Heraskevych drew a stinging response from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a>, who said the \u201cOlympic movement should help stop wars, not play into the hands of aggressors\u201d.<\/p>\n

The IOC had tried to find a compromise with Heraskevych, allowing him to wear the helmet in training runs and when talking to the media and proposed that he wear a black armband in competition, but he refused to back down.<\/p>\n

Kirsty Coventry, the IOC president and a former Olympic gold medallist in swimming, met with Heraskevych, who was one of Ukraine\u2019s flag bearers in the opening ceremony, early on Thursday in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade him to change his mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy conversation with Vlad and his dad yesterday was a very good conversation, a very respectful conversation and you know, it was a time really for me and him to speak as athletes,\u201d Coventry said on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was really important for me and I think for him and I shared with him yesterday how the process went.\u201d<\/p>\n

But on the issue of political messages, \u201cthe rules are the rules as they stand today\u201d, Coventry said.<\/p>\n

– Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAS Secretary-General Matthieu Reeb told reporters after the hearing that the court had \u201cfound that freedom of expression…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2246,158035,9092,6375,806,32319,1060,37998,690,38653,71,47526,158033,78,96135,5836,111,139,69,5106,422,20296,29689,123060,213,3461,100172,35965,158034,6149,49370,23644,102],"class_list":["post-283007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-2246","tag-adorned","tag-against","tag-appeal","tag-as","tag-backs","tag-ban","tag-cas","tag-dead","tag-disqualification","tag-from","tag-helmet","tag-heraskevych","tag-in","tag-ioc","tag-lost","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-olympics","tag-pictures","tag-racer","tag-row","tag-skeleton","tag-sports","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian","tag-upheld","tag-vladyslav","tag-war","tag-wearing","tag-winter","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}