MOSCOW, October 18. /TASS/. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has rejected an appeal from Russia’s Gazprom-RusVelo calling to overturn the decision by the International Cycling Union (UCI) to suspend the team, the press office of the world’s governing body of cycling sports announced on Wednesday.

According to the UCI, Russia’s Gazprom-RusVelo team appealed its suspension with the Swiss-based court on March 22, 2023 and CAS ruled today to reject the Russian side’s request.

According to the UCI, it made a decision on March 1, 2022 to indefinitely suspend Russian and Belarusian teams from participating in its international events.

"The registration as a UCI team was withdrawn for all teams of Russian and Belarusian nationality, including Gazprom-RusVelo, and the sponsorship of Russian and Belarusian brands or products was declared," the statement reads.

On February 28, 2022, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued recommendations to international sports federations to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from taking part in international tournaments, citing Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine as the reason.

Following the IOC’s recommendations in late February 2022, the majority of global sports federations decided to bar athletes from Russia and Belarus from all international sports tournaments.

On March 1, 2022, the International Cycling Union (UCI) suspended athletes from Russia and Belarus from participating in the federation’s tournaments.

However, at its session on January 25, 2023, the IOC Executive Board put forward a proposal to permit individual athletes from Russia and Belarus to take part in international sports tournaments, but only under certain conditions. Athletes from the countries in question should not be "actively supporting" Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and must compete under a neutral status.