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Reiter’s Olympics lawsuit moves forward

Joel Reichenberger

— Step 1 of suing the International Olympic Committee was a success for Steamboat Springs Olympic snowboarder Justin Reiter, according to an email from his lawyer, Filippo Marchino.

Reiter’s case against the IOC had its first hearing in a Swiss court Friday, and Marchino wrote that a judge allowed the case to proceed.

Reiter is suing the IOC to reinstate parallel slalom snowboard racing in the Olympics after it was discontinued in June by a vote of the IOC’s executive board.



“We set forth our arguments, and the IOC set forth theirs,” Marchino wrote. “At the end of the hearing, the judge awarded Justin the authorization to proceed, which, in essence, now allows Justin to perfect his claim against the IOC by filing a ‘statement of claim’ and thereby launching the full blown litigation against the IOC.”

Reiter’s argument centers around the timeline of the decision, which fell within three years of the opening of the 2018 Winter Olympics. Reiter thinks this action was a violation of the organization’s by-laws.



The judge’s ruling allows the case to proceed, but the mediation session that followed yielded no results.

“The mediation portion was cut short, because the IOC made it clear that, in their opinion, there is no case,” Marchino wrote. “We expected them to make that argument, and we’re glad to see that the court nonetheless saw that Justin’s claims are viable and deserve to move forward.”


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