CAS bans two Russian athletes and two coaches for doping

ZURICH (Reuters) - Middle distance runner Ekaterina Poistogova was one of two Russian athletes and two coaches banned on Friday by the Court for Arbitration for Sport for breaching anti-doping rules. Poistogova, who won a bronze medal in the 800 meters at the 2012 London Olympics, was banned for two years for the use of a banned substance. The ban is backdated to August 2015, with her results from October 2014 nullified. Alexey Melnikov, the former senior coach of the Russian national athletics team, and Vladimir Kazarin, a Russian athletics coach, training short, middle and long-distance runners, both received life bans. The Swiss-based court also handed an eight-year ban to race walker Stanislav Emelyanov for his second doping offence. The CAS has been ruling on cases because the Russian Athletics Federation is suspended following the ongoing doping scandal. (Reporting by John Revill, editing by Neil Robinson)