The Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky has been stripped of his mixed doubles bronze medal amid rumours that a deal has been struck to allow Russian athletes to march under their country’s flag at Sunday’s closing ceremony.

Krushelnitsky had initially protested his innocence after testing positive for the banned heart drug meldonium, claiming his drink had been spiked. However on Thursday he dropped his appeal before he was officially banned by the court of arbitration for sport.

Krushelnitsky denies drugs charge after Winter Olympics test failure Read more

In a statement, Cas sad: “The athlete has accepted a provisional suspension beyond the period of the Games and reserved his rights to seek the elimination or reduction of any period of ineligibility based on ’no fault or negligence’ following the conclusion of the Games.”

It means that the medal won by Krushelnitsky and his wife Anastasia Bryzgalova will be awarded to the Norway pair of Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten, who had originally finished fourth.

Meanwhile, the well-connected Russian journalist Dmitry Zhelanov, who first revealed that Krushelnitsky had failed a drugs test, suggested that deeper political currents were at play with International Olympic Committee. “Two years instead of a four-year ban for and the return of the flag – all this it seems to be part of the deal with the IOC,” he tweeted.

That echoes the thoughts of many in Pyeongchang after what has seemed like a series of coordinated steps over the past 36 hours to pave the way for Russia to return to the sporting fold.

Those steps have included the IOC president Thomas Bach meeting Russian presidential aide Igor Levitin on Wednesday, and the South Korean President Moon jae-in hailing the participation of the Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) team as having “made the Games better”.

Crucially, Russia’s Olympic Committee is also said to have paid a $15m fine imposed in December because of systemic doping at the Sochi Games – a prerequisite for having their suspension lifted.

The IOC’s executive board, which has effectively become a rubber-stamping body for Bach, will confirm whether to lift – or partially lift – Russia’s suspension on Saturday. If they do so, Russia’s athletes will be allowed to march under the flag again.

Meanwhile, Krushelnitsky’s case will now pass to the World Curling Federation, who must decide what further disciplinary action to take. Under the World Anti-Doping Code, he can be banned up to four years. If, however, he can prove he was the victim of sabotage then Krushelnitsky could escape further punishment.

The OAR coach Sergey Belanov certainly believe Krushelnitsky was framed, saying: “It’s just stupid to use a single dose of meldonium It does not work that way, the drug needs a course to restore the heart muscle.”

He added: “We live in a hotel in the Olympic Village. Every day a person of five passes through the rooms without us. There comes housekeeping, and completely different people: the grandmothers sweeping the floor, the young guys and girls in gauze dressings bring towels to change. Replace the bottle with another, with the contaminated substance - yes it is easy!”

Having called for the Russian Olympic Committee to consider isolating all of its athletes in the future to stop further sabotages he drew a strange parallel with Krushelnitsky’s case and chemical attacks in Syria.

“I have a complete analogy with what is happening in Syria with chemical attacks,” Belanov said. “How is it organised there? The gang, covered by the US army, brings chlorine and infects territory. Then the guys in white arrive, they take off all this nonsense primitively and rudely – although it is clear that everything is sewn with white threads.”