Katusha’s Russian national champion perplexed about delay

Russia’s top one day specialist, Alexandr Kolobnev, is still waiting on the medal that has been rightfully his for many months now following the disqualification of Davide Rebellin from the Olympic road race in Beijing. The medal is not only his, but it has been in the possession of the Russian Olympic Committee for two months as of Monday.

The Russian star has made a name for himself as a rider able to contend on the world’s hardest one day circuits, and in Beijing, he showed himself, once again, to be a rider to watch with 4th place behind Samuel Sanchez, Davide Rebellin, and Fabian Cancellara.

Following the Ardennes Classics in 2009, the news broke that Rebellin had tested positive for CERA-EPO during the 2008 season, thus making all of his results following the positive null and void.

Rebellin’s appeal process followed, so it wasn’t until July of 2010, that Rebellin was definitively suspended, following a ruling from the CAS.

Kolobnev had already begun work on taking the medal that was rightfully his earlier in the year, but to no avail. The process was moving anything but quickly.

There was no real progress until the end of 2010. It wasn’t until the middle of December, just one month ago, that Fabian Cancellara received Rebellin’s old silver medal from the Swiss Olympic Federation. In that time since Cancellara’s award ceremony, Kolobnev has still not received his new bronze medal from his own country.

According to Sports.ru and cyclismag, that medal was delivered by International Olympic Committee president, Jacques Rogge, to the leaders of the Russian Olympic Committee two months ago, November 17th, to be exact.

Repeated requests to the Russian Olympic Committee have come to naught for Kolobnev. The Katusha rider has even gone so far as to ask for help from the IOC in the matter.

“Up until this point, I have not received a single notice either from the officials of the Russian Olympic Committee or from any other officials. I understand that such an attitude is not a positive description of Russian representatives of the Olympic Committee, but I have no other possibility to contact them and inquire about my medal,” said Kolobnev on his website.

So now, the 29 year old has written to the International Olympic Committee in hopes of some form of help, specifically, he hopes the IOC will “make the ROC take the appropriate measures against the current will of the ROC officials.”

Whenever the native of Vyksa does actually manage to get hold of his bronze medal, one wonders what will go through the rider’s mind.