LAUSANNE, March 2. /TASS/. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) accepted on Monday a statement from lawyers, who represent interests of Russian biathlon athletes, regarding forged signatures in documents from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a source close to the situation told TASS.

The Swiss-based court has requested the IOC to provide explanations on this issue before Tuesday, March 3.

"The CAS Arbitration Panel has accepted a statement on the reportedly forged signatures in the IOC documents and ordered the International Olympic Committee to provide explanations on the issue within a one-day period," the source said.

In response to a TASS request to comment on the information, the IOC press service replied it was unable to make statements at this time of the court hearings in Switzerland.

"The IOC does not make comments on a hearing that is currently in progress," the press service of the world’s governing Olympic body stated.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne started on Monday hearings into an appeal filed over two years ago by Russian biathlon athletes Olga Zaitzeva, Yana Romanova and Olga Vilukhina against their lifetime suspensions from the sport imposed by the IOC.

The Russian female biathletes, who have officially wrapped their sport careers in November 2017, were banned for life from all sports activities by the IOC, which also ruled to cancel all their results achieved at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.

Zaitzeva, Romanova and Vilukhina, together with another Russian biathlete, Yekaterina Shumilova, won the silver of the 2014 Olympics in biathlon team relay competition but the IOC cancelled their result. Vilukhina was also stripped of her 2014 Olympics silver medal in the women’s biathlon sprint event. All three of them filed an appeal with the Swiss-based court over two years ago, but the start of the hearings had been postponed since then.

Alexei Panich, a lawyer representing interests of three Russian biathletes in the CAS, announced earlier in the day that all signatures on Grigory Rodchenkov’s affidavits, which had been submitted by the IOC as key proof in the case against the Russian biathletes, were forged.

Whistleblower Rodchenkov and his doping allegations