Overview
- Vladyslav Heraskevych remains excluded from the Milan–Cortina skeleton event after the IBSF deemed his portrait helmet non-compliant and the IOC revoked his accreditation.
- The Court of Arbitration for Sport’s ad hoc chamber heard his urgent appeal on Friday, with an in-principle decision expected the same day, and the athlete said he felt optimistic afterward.
- The IOC said it offered a black armband as a compromise and stressed that the issue concerns where messages are displayed under its athlete-expression rules.
- Heraskevych had trained in the helmet honoring Ukrainian athletes killed since Russia’s invasion and posted that the sanction was “the price of our dignity.”
- Ukraine’s leadership and teammates rallied behind him, with President Volodymyr Zelensky praising the tribute, the foreign minister calling the IOC’s move a “moment of shame,” and luge teammates staging a visible on-camera gesture.