THE court hearings with the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) on Russia’s appeal against the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) sanctions may last until the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Stanislav Pozdnyakov, the president of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), said on Tuesday, Russian news agency TASS reported.

“There are preconditions indicating that the whole story would be over either on the brink of the [2020] Olympics or after the Games,” Pozdnyakov told journalists.

The 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics Games will be held from July 24 to Aug. 9.

“Regulations do not state in particular the timeframe for WADA to turn to CAS,” Pozdnyakov told journalists, adding that the previous experience shows that it should take a period of between one and two weeks.

Earlier this week, ROC and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) determined Swiss lawyer Claude Ramoni and Swiss-based legal firm Schellenberg Wittmer would represent their respective interests in the CAS process on WADA sanctions.

“It will take approximately three months after the appointment of CAS arbitrators before the verdict is announced,” the ROC president mentioned on Tuesday.

According to TASS, on the same day, members of the ROC Executive Committee supported a decision of the RUSADA Supervisory Board to appeal against WADA’s case against Russia.

As the RUSADA Supervisory Board met Dec. 19, they disputed WADA’s decision and recommended taking the case to CAS in Switzerland’s Lausanne. (CGTN)