CAS decision on Russian appeal on Friday

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (Reuters) - A decision on an appeal by Russian athletes to compete at the Pyeongchang Olympics will be issued on Friday at 1100 local time (0200 GMT), the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said on Thursday.

CAS has been handling several appeals from the Russians after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) invited 169 carefully screened Russian athletes to compete as independents in South Korea.

Russia was banned from Pyeongchang over the Sochi 2014 doping scandal and the IOC had banned dozens of athletes from the games for life and stripped their Sochi Games medals following several investigations.

CAS upheld the appeal of 28 athletes due to insufficient evidence but the IOC still refused to invite them saying the evidence was there.

CAS is also handling appeals of Russians, including Olympic champion skater Viktor Ahn, who had not been named in the doping investigations or had any prior doping offences but were still not invited due to doping suspicions by the IOC.

The Games run from Feb. 9-25.

(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)