Monaco, Apr 9 (IANS): The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) welcomed Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)'s decision of holding nine Russian athletes guilty of Anti-Doping Rule Violations.

The AIU promised to 'continue to investigate and bring forward new cases' so that more guilty athletes could be punished.

The CAS, headquartered in Lausanne, on Thursday confirmed anti-doping violations by all nine Russian athletes in connection with the findings of the World Anti-Doping Agency-commissioned (WADA) reports of Richard McLaren.

McLaren was one of the three members of the WADA Commission who investigated allegations of state-sponsored doping in Russian sports.

The AIU chief, Brett Clothier, said in a statement, "CAS's rulings confirm once again that the evidence underlying the McLaren reports is reliable and is capable of establishing Anti-Doping Rule Violations for use of prohibited substances. The AIU has dedicated significant time and resources investigating and prosecuting these cases both at first instance and on appeal and, encouraged by these rulings, it will continue to investigate and bring forward new cases based on the McLaren evidence."

The nine Russian athletes against whom Anti-Doping Rule Violations have been upheld are: Lyukman Adams (4 years from Feb 1, 2019); Ekaterina Galitskaia (3 years from Feb 1, 2019); Ivan Ukhov (2 years, 9 months from February 1, 2019); Svetlana Shkolina (2 years, 9 months from Feb 1, 2019); Yuliya Kondakova (2 years, 9 months from Feb 1, 2019); Natalya Antyukh (4 years from April 7, 2021); Andrey Silnov (4 years from April 7, 2021); Oksana Kondratyeva (4 years from April 7, 2021); Yelena Soboleva (8 years from April 7 2021 -- 2nd Anti-Doping Rule Violation).