With the end of the Winter Olympics in Beijing drawing near, the US figure skaters whose Olympic silver medals are being withheld have filed an appeal to have these medals awarded to them before the end of the Games.
According to AP, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) confirmed that a hearing for that case was taking place in Beijing on Saturday evening, and that they expect a "rapid ruling".
The attorneys for the skaters stated that they sought a ruling before the closing ceremony on Sunday, AP adds, citing a letter sent by them to IOC president Thomas Bach.
Last week, Kamila Valieva led the Russian figure skating team to victory at the team event in the Olympics, with the US team earning second place.
Shortly afterwards, however, the International Testing Agency said that a blood test performed on Valieva on 25 December, by a laboratory accredited by WADA, contained a banned substance called trimetazidine, which led to the award ceremony being postponed indefinitely.
The US athletes who participated in that event now seek to have their medals awarded to them, with US Figure Skating executive director Ramsey Baker insisting in a statement he sent to AP that "having a medal ceremony at an Olympic Games is not something that can be replicated anywhere else, and they should be celebrated in front of the world before leaving Beijing."
"A dignified medal ceremony from our clients' vantage point is one in the Medals Plaza as originally planned and afforded to all other medalists," postulated Paul Greene, attorney who "represents athletes in doping and other cases against Olympic authorities", as AP put it.
Nine US athletes stand to "get some sort of medal" out of the matter at hand, be it silver medals they've already won or the gold medals they might receive if the Russian athletes were to be disqualified over Valieva's doping case, AP notes.